


To Build a Home

by cherrytisane



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Slow Build, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:02:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3691575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytisane/pseuds/cherrytisane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[CURRENTLY BEING REVISED / REWRITTEN]</p><p>Nice, neat, happily ever afters aren't free, but Hide would give anything to have one. As time goes on, he learns that maybe, one doesn't always need a neat, perfect ending in order to be happy. </p><p> Root A alternate ending, where Hide manages treats his wound after his encounter with Noro. Therefore, changing his reunion with Kaneki, and the events that follow after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Grave Robbing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! My name is Niro and this is my first Tokyo Ghoul fanfiction! :D  
> Thank you for joining me on this journey!  
> 

The sound of gunfire tears through the night as searchlights from the helicopters roaring overhead illuminate heavens, flashing through the dark clouds like a warning beacon before fading. The whirring blades beat relentlessly, disturbing the snow crusted street beneath.

 It's late, the hours bleeding into the early morning as the battle rages, and Hide is exhausted.

Thick, choking smoke blankets the sky, dimming what few stars he could see as the moon shines a diminishing light over the streets and buildings. It reveals the cracks and crevices carved into the walls of the alleyway he's taken refuge in like so many new scars. Overhead, a streetlight flickers noisily, spilling sickly yellow light over him before cutting off abruptly, and Hide suppresses a bemused laugh.

_It’s just like one of your horror novels, hey, Kaneki?_

He waits in the shadows for the sounds of cheering CCG soldiers, and it comes, crashing like the waves of the ocean against rock. Loud, relief filled cries that thunder, a sign of a battle won. Hide lets out a small laugh of relief, and it turns into a distraught, choking sob as his joy is tinged with guilt. His heart becomes heavy in his chest and sinks to the pit of his stomach as the faces of the Anteiku staff flash across his mind.

The CCG’s victory meant their deaths.

In the blink of an eye, the world explodes into chaos. A red streak shrieks across the sky like a shooting star, splitting the inky darkness before crashing on the top of a building with a resounding boom. The relieved cheering gives way to screams of rising terror as Aoigiri Ghouls descend from the rooftops, ready for the hunt, eager to tear meat from bones. There are dozens of them, too many for Hide to count, geared in red cloth with an assortment of masks concealing their faces.

Multiple explosions rip through buildings, massive blocks of concrete and steel fall from the sky like meteors. They crash into the ground below and the streets that crumble and split from the force. Many CCG soldiers are crushed by falling debris, their bodies are little more than red smears on the pavement, no longer recognizable.

Hide desperately throws himself out of the way of some falling brick; his chest heaving from exertion. A nearby shop bursts into flames as a damaged electric cable finds fuel.  The inferno blazes down the street with alarming speed, like a striking snake, burning all in its path. 

A high, unearthly scream drowns out everything else for a few brief moments before the orchestra of battle resumes.

Around Hide, left and right, soldiers are being cut down by ghouls and hit by desperate friendly fire. Aoigiri is overwhelming them, and the stench of fear, panic, and blood fills the air.

Hide sprints down alleyways, ducking and weaving between soldiers, ghouls and anything else that crosses his path. He swallows his fear and hides, breath held until the danger moves around him like a river around a stubborn rock, until he can breathe again and he presses onwards.

When the sounds of battle fade into the distance, he finally allows himself a chance to rest. He bends over, placing his hands on knees to stop himself from trembling, trying to gulp down some of the frosty night air. A few precious moments pass and Hide straightens and for the first time, he notices the state of the street before him. The sight causes him to feel like all the air he just recovered was sucked out of his lungs.

Hide had never given much thought to how he would die.

It's entirely unreasonable, now that he thinks about it, as he stares out at the corpses of his fallen CCG soldiers. That is if he can even call them corpses anymore. They’re strewn around the street at random, ruined, faces frozen in fear, jaws slacked and eyes frozen open, glassy and haunting. Hides stomach turns, and he holds a hand to his mouth as he suppresses the urge to throw up.

The lucky ones are recognizable, with an array of deep wounds carved into their bodies, but intact, enough to bury and lay to rest. Others were not so lucky. The closest corpse to him has had their skull crushed, and limbs were torn. Another has had their intestines ripped from their abdomen and left to pour out onto the ground like mud rolling down a hill.

 It's an almost bitter realization that death could come at any time, at any place.

In the distance, the sounds of battle start once more, a blood-curdling scream and the atmosphere fills with the frantic scattering of bullets and the clanging of Quinque and Kagune.

In an adrenaline-induced frenzy, Hide runs around the mass grave and scans the scene, hoping he doesn’t find a face he recognizes here. He pales as his eyes find a corpse thrown to the curb, the victim's hair is a familiar shade of white, his limbs bent askew and his skin pale.

_Oh god, please don't be him!_

With trembling hands and hesitant footsteps, Hide approaches the body and kneels down to roll them over slowly to examine the corpse's face. He cries out in relief when it is revealed not to be Kaneki. Immediately a feeling of self-disgust at feeling relief over death wells up within him.

Tonight, however, Hide does not have the luxury of remorse. Instead, he focuses on his mission, hardening his heart and filling his mind with determination.

Another scream echoes through the air, sharp, strangled and almost immediately cut off. Hide stands and moves away from the body, adrenaline flooding his veins. Bright eyes quickly dart across the street, searching for the source of the cry. He assesses that the scream was close, too close for comfort and he needs to move and move now.

Hide suddenly becomes acutely aware that he has come all this way without a weapon, and he resists the urge to facepalm. Any encounter with the Aogiri right now would be a death sentence.

The uneven and scattered pounding of boots on pavement grows louder, followed by the frantic metallic grating of automatic rifles. They’re close; too close. Hide doesn’t have much time. He looks left and right before out of desperation he decides to hide among the fallen.

Smearing his face and body with blood and filth to disguise his scent, he lies down and drapes a corpse's arm over his chest.  He watches with blank, staring eyes as a scattering of CCG personnel come around the corner, firing their weapons behind them in blind fear.

Soon after, three masked ghouls appear, swathed in blood stained robes. They begin to laugh mockingly as they assess the mass graveyard before them, their masks shining eerily in the moonlight. The ghouls’ Kagunes are sharp, lethal, as they curl around their arms, slowly and deliberately, like snakes slithering towards their prey.

A soldier yells and fires a barrage of bullets, but their brave last stand is cut short by a shriek of metal; his weapon sheared in half. The kagune of one rears backs and strikes again, tearing the soldier in half like a warm knife through butter. The ghouls begin to dance, a macabre ballet, splattering blood and shearing flesh in their wake. 

Hide can hear his blood pounding in his ears and bites his tongue to suppress the urge to scream. He can hear someone begging for their life before their words are cut off with a sickening squelch. A ghoul stands over him, and Hide does his best to still his ribcage and wildly beating heart.

Hide’s eyes are beginning to burn from the icy air, and his vision darkens at the corners from lack of oxygen, spreading over his eyes like a vengeful ghost, but he cannot move. The ghoul walks away, Hide’s eyes water as he clenches them tightly as the dreaded realization of the cruel nature of human mortality sinks into his bones.

Yes, Hide had never given thought to how he would die, but he imagines the thought would now haunt him forever.

The last of the screams cease abruptly, a body falling heavily to the floor as a sickening squelch of Kagune being removed can be heard. Hide breathes out slowly and waits for the sound of the ghoul’s departure. With their parting, the suppressed guilt from earlier begins to carve open Hide's heart.

 _It’s all for Kaneki_ ; he chants like a mantra, tears running down his cheeks,  _I'm sorry, I'm sorry..._

The world falls eerily silent as if in a mourning lament, and Hide slowly composes himself. He pushes the soldier’s cold arm off his chest and rises to his feet. He takes a moment to survey the carnage before him before continuing his search. He can’t help them anymore, and he has his mission to complete.

Trudging through the streets, Hide becomes dimly aware of how cold he is, his breath is steaming in the night air as he cautiously makes his way towards to next site. He leans against a brick wall, pressing his body close to peek around the corner. He's looking for signs of movement, the rustling of cloth, the sounds of footsteps or wet sounds of teeth gnawing flesh.  

The area appears to be clear, only a few dead in the gutters. The screaming, gunfire and the sickening sound of tearing flesh are absent. Hide realizes that the sounds of battle are not nearly as terrifying as the dreaded silence that comes after. The silence means that means death, not peace.

Hide wanders towards the dead bodies and almost absent-mindedly checks their features. Not recognizing them, he continues his search, his heart growing heavier with each step.  As he walks, he kicks something with his boot and hears a loud clatter of steel on stone. On the street before him is a knife, approximately the length of his forearm, sharp and stained with drying blood.

He realizes he is still weaponless and chastises himself for wandering a battlefield unarmed.  Picking the weapon up, he wipes as much of the blood off the blade as he can before sheathing the knife in the straps of his boots. He lingers for a brief moment before deciding to pilfer the bodies for more valuable artifacts.

The body nearest him has a satchel draped on one shoulder. It has been torn open, and Hide can see a field emergency first aid kit secured inside. The package appears intact, albeit soaked in blood.

Hide unzips the bag and checks the contents. It seems quite well stocked, only missing a few bandages and vials of pain medication. He makes a note of the hemostatic dressings, counting the rolls of material, and decides to take the kit with him. He attaches the pack to the belt of his uniform and pulls the strap to check its security.

Satisfied, Hide continues down the street.

After a while, a cold, icy feeling slithers down his spine with ghostly fingers and settles deep in his stomach, causing goosebumps to rise on his skin, and he slows down, blinking honey colored eyes warily.  His gut tenses and suddenly he realizes he’s in danger.

In the courtyard ahead stand two Aogiri ghouls, illuminated by a ring of fire, brazen golds, and reds dancing unearthly across them. They are tall with wide shoulders and the air around them emits a power that makes Hide's heart quicken and his hair stick to his temples from the heat.

Bodies are littered in a semi-circle around the two ghouls. Even from this distance, Hide can see the blood still seeping from fresh wounds. The last man stands; weapon pointed defiantly towards the ghouls though even Hide can smell the fear radiating from his body.

Wait.

He knows this man. He is friends with this person. He used to have lunch with this person in the cafeteria back in his internship, and long talks over cheap coffee. He knows this man's doubts and fears and Hide feels the cold, bitter feeling of helplessness spread through his body.

 _Seidou Takizawa,_ every nerve in his body screams to help him, but how? 

The ghoul attacks Seidou without mercy. He catapults him into the air, and almost as if in slow motion, the kagune of the ghoul in the smiling mask slithers after him and latches onto the side of Seidou’s body with a sickening crunch.

Hide can hear his friend gasp in pain as the kagune bites off his arm clean at the shoulder, throwing his limp body against the wall. A wet smack resounds through the courtyard as Seidou's skull hits the wall; his body crumples to the floor and hitting the cobblestones with a dull thud.

In shock, Hide whispers out his name.

The ghouls smiling face twists towards him.

Hide tries to get his body to move, to do something, but he’s frozen in fear. It rendering his limbs heavy and useless as if his blood has turned to lead. Hide’s breath leaves his body in forced puffs. He needs to move; he needs to go now, but his body won't let him. In some corner of his mind, Hide wonders if this is what a cornered animal feels.

After what feels like an eternity, the ghoul charges him with a speed that Hide didn’t think was physically possible. In less time than it takes Hide to blink, the grinning man's kagune has snaps through the air, striking like a serpent.

Somehow, Hide had managed to move his body, but not far enough. The kagune rips into the flesh of his side like raking talons, scooping his flesh into the claw, and pulls. He screams, in pain and in hysteria, as hot blood flows through his fingers as he tries to cover the wound. The kagune whips around strikes again, and the force of the impact causes him to stagger into the wall of the courtyard.

Hide ducks as the kagune slices through a wall, and then sweeps down as if to cleave him in half. Hide throws himself forwards and dodges the strike, but relief is short lived. The kagune wraps around his right leg and hauls him into the air as if he were nothing more than an insect, and struggles to get free before he gets thrown to the ground and dragged along the asphalt, before he’s held in the air again, hanging limply like a fish on a hook. A human prize.

The pain is blinding, and rough screams are ripped from his throat as the teeth begin to close slowly on his leg. He tries his best to ignore the pain of torn flesh and muscle. Rivulets of blood run from beneath his armor, drenching his clothes in the warm liquid. Every breath he takes sends jarring pains through his body and tangy taste of blood coats his tongue.

Summoning what will power he has left, Hide yells and manages to bend double to grab the knife in his boot. When his hand fastens around the handle, he cries out in a fury and repeatedly stabs at the Kagune until he can feel it retreat – taking his knife with it. He falls to the floor in a wet, bloody mess and he turns his body over to drag himself pitifully away from the ghoul.

Hide is vaguely aware that he is bleeding everywhere, his blood mixing with the snow and glowing eerily from the light of the fire. He can hear the thudding of heavy footsteps following his pathetic crawl. It makes him want to be sick; his stomach spasms as he holds down the bile in his throat.

 _I can’t die here,_ he thinks to himself, not like this, not without seeing Kaneki again.

Maybe if he plays dead, the ghoul will leave him be. He cries out in agony when a heavy foot presses into on his back, pinning him in place. Out of the corner of his eye, Hide can see the kagune hovering over his head.

At this moment, Hide allows himself to remember the bitter taste of black coffee, the smell of new books and the wisps of soft smiles.

But Hide is ripped from his reverie by the stink of ash and blood. His skull throbs, his eyes water, and it feels as his heart is being pushed through a sieve. All he wants to do right now is pass out and submit to his fate, the cold darkness beyond. It seems like an excellent idea.

In fact, it seems like a goddamn great idea.

Just as Hide accepts the yawning darkness before him, the boot pressing him into the snow is lifted, and he manages a ragged breath, sucking air greedily into his lungs.

He is dimly aware of the two ghouls conversing, but the voices are distorted, his blood rushing loudly in his skull and beating relentlessly against his eardrums. He lies in the snow, shivering, bile threatening to crawl up from his stomach, before finally rolling over to behold an empty courtyard.

The ghouls are walking away, down the street, the body of Seidou hanging limply between them. They're holding his friend by the back of his jacket; Seidou’s limbs are dragging on the ground. Skin sloughing off at the rough treatment, blood trailing in his wake.

Then they are gone, and with their departure Hide lets out a sob and then another, and then another.  As his sides tremble with grief, pain floods his senses as the adrenaline fades.

The gaping wound in his side is still bleeding, and Hide realizes that he is in grave danger. He’s shaking, trembling, wiping blood and mucous from his face, and spitting out globs of blood and saliva from behind his molars.

Hide tries to regulate his breathing, to calm his body and stop his ribs from spasming. The key is not to panic- maybe when he cleans it up the wound won't look so bad, and all it will need is a band-aid and a kiss from his mother, so it’s all better. 

Steeling himself, Hide crawls along the ground through the mud and the gore and, using the remains of the wall, drags himself to his feet. He's holding his guts in with the palm of his hand and is gritting his teeth as the pain continues to course through his body.  

He needs to get somewhere safe to dress this wound; the security of a shop or house will do. Just somewhere out of sight where he can scream if the pain gets too much. Looting the medical kit from that corpse earlier was a damn good idea.

Stumbling lethargically, Hide breaks into a nearby house by smashing a window with his elbow and dragging his body through the frame. He falls onto the carpet with the finesse of a pregnant wildebeest and crawls his way into the kitchen area, trying not to bleed all over the upholstery, silently apologizing to the owner, where-ever they are.

Clumsily, Hide maneuvers himself onto the cold tiles of the kitchen and using his one good arm, spills the contents of the medkit all over the floor.

The kitchen is empty, and the fridge is covered in smiling pictures and what looks like children’s drawings. Light slips through the closed blind and a clock ticks in the stillness of the room that smells of pine scented chemical cleaning agents.

Hide holds back tears and focuses on what he needs to do: stop the blood, sanitize the wound, seal the wound, apply gauze and bandage tightly to wrap it up in a neat little bow and hopefully survive.  He tries to remember the mission brief before the raid, and the rushed combat medicine information they supplied.

Words such as blood clotting agents, serums to make wound numb, hemostatic bandages and how to use a needle and thread cross his mind; Hide sucks in a breath. Using scissors provided in the medical kit, he cuts away the material around the wound until the broken flesh is revealed. The site is pretty torn up, reminding him a little of crushed raspberries, but nothing compared to the injuries he saw on the streets.

With shaky hands, Hide uncaps a bottle of iodine solution and counts to three.

_One_

_Two_

_Three_

_Fuck_

With clenched teeth, he pours the liquid onto the wound and gasps in pain as the disinfectant does its job. The stinging intensifies and, with a fumbling hand, Hide grasps the needle and thread and psyches himself up for what he needs to do next.

_I need to get a grip. Come on Hide, you can deal with this._

Hide inhales, grits his teeth and placed a shaking hand against his wound to hold the flesh together. He's on a mission, treat it like mission, like something written in a medical textbook. Slowly he pushes the needle through his skin, tears streaming down his face, blinding him. He pulls the thread tight, wincing in pain. Over and over and over he pushes and pulls.

_This fucking hurts._

The iodine burns, the needle stings, and the thread pulls roughly through his skin. Slowly, the sutures pull the wound shut. Hide lost count of the stitches, but at last, the wound is cleaned and sealed. He takes a moment to observe his handiwork and feels a small twinge of pride at his achievement, even though it looks like a zig-zag down a bored child’s textbook.

Hide grabs the hemostatic bandages, presses his back into the fridge and slides to his feet. He chokes back a cry and ignoring the fact that his knees are still shaking, takes small, tentative steps forward until he stands in the center of the kitchen.

Lifting his shirt a little he unwraps the hemostatic bandages and wraps them as tight around his torso as he can. The powder makes him itch a little, but the blood is already starting to clot thickly against the gauze.

Besides, he’d take itching over bleeding out any day.

A vaguely triumphant feeling fills him as he staggers into an adjacent bathroom and raids the medicine cabinet for anything to help with the pain. He punctures two pills out of a blister pack and swallows them down with a handful of sink water.

Hide catches his reflection in the mirror, and he looks an infinity older than the man he was yesterday. His golden hair a little dimmer, and his eyes look tired, his skin appearing to grow paler and paler before his eyes, numerous bruises scattered over in offensive stars.

He splashes water on his face, breaking himself out of his reverie, and gasps at the cold touch. He decides it's time to leave the house, this time to through the front door, leaving the medical kit abandoned in his departure.

He uses the walls of the surrounding building as a guide to help him move, and he dimly notes that he hasn’t heard screams or bullets in a while. Does that mean the battle is over and that he was too late to save Kaneki? Is he a faceless corpse scattered in some dark corner, waiting to be recovered and burned?

As he turns into an alley, Hide sees something that makes him feel as though someone has just ripped his heart of his chest. It is almost as if his thoughts had summoned his greatest fear.

There's a figure lying on the ground in a pool of blood. The person's hair is stark white, and his outstretched hands have blackened nails. Hide limps towards him, hoping against all hope that it's not what it first seemed to be, that this cannot be the lifeless shell of his best friend.

But life, cruel and cynical as always, laughs at him.

His hope shatters like glass.

Hide breaks into a staggered run towards the figure in the snow, and he falls to his knees at the person's side, hands trembling. Everything he remembered about basic first aid vanishes like smoke in a hurricane as grief takes hold. He'd never forget this face. Even smothered in dirt and blood, this face is burnt into his brain, he sees it in his dreams, like the imprint of a ghost haunting him.

Kaneki is laying at an odd angle, eyes closed, skin terrifyingly pale. Too white: almost bloodless underneath all that muck and grime. Maybe he's dead- God is he dead? Is he? Hide’s fingers feel clumsy as he gingerly moves the head, so it's at a less jarring angle from the rest of his body, his fingers rest on the jaw line. His flesh is cold, and Hide begins to feel sick again, breaking out in a cold sweat as he fumbles for a pulse.

You can't be dead, I just found you. Please don’t be dead.

Like the movement in a spider's web: Kaneki's fingers twitch slightly, and Hide feels the smallest of breaths on his face. Hide sighs in immediate glorious relief. It's there at least. His pulse, beating under his fingers like the wings of a  butterfly.

_I found him. He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive._

He can't help grinning, something that travels all the way up to his eyes. Light seems to sparkle behind the honey colored irises, while subconsciously his hand moves up to span the rest of Kaneki’s face, taking in the changes.

His hair is platinum now, so bright that the slightest light illuminates the soft strands. The face has changed slightly; older, thinner perhaps, more angular: still beautifully formed. Kaneki's mouth is the same as it ever, slightly parted as it is now flushed and full as the body draws in air.

Absently, Hide moves his fingers to brush the pale strands of hair away from Kaneki's face; his digits rubbing against cuts and bruises that curdle against the milky flow of his skin. He leans down to hear the faint sounds of breathing and a flood of warmth fills his chest, and that’s when he notices that the wounds are healing, albeit slowly. In his euphoria at discovering his childhood friend Hide has temporarily forgotten that he was in the middle of a battlefield.

Hide is a little unsure of what to do now. His mission was to find Kaneki, preferably conscious, animated, instead of still and terribly wounded, bleeding out into the snow. He knows he needs to get Kaneki somewhere safe, somewhere neutral and comfortable for the confrontation ahead. Only one place fulfills all three requirements.

Anteiku.

The place where this journey began.

The funny thing is that a long time ago he used to dream of this. He had in his head rehearsed so many lines, so many actions. Practiced entire speeches in those timeless hours of the night, when only the walls and moon could hear him. He had planned it all, actions and words. How it would end happily-ever-after, and everything would be back to normal.

He smiles a little for no reason at all; head tilted slightly to the left so that dusty blonde trails of hair fall across his forehead. Hide bends at the knees and lifts the lithe body into his arms, and his own wounds scream at their mistreatment, and he can feel the tug on his stitches, and he bites his lips against the pain.

Hide doesn’t care though, nothing else matters now that he’s found Kaneki.

It's not as if Kaneki can hear the words he says next. It's not as if there was any point in speaking at all, yet the statement is simply a genuine reflection of the different paths they've followed.

"Yo... Kaneki, long time no see, huh?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> re-written and updated on the 2nd July 2017


	2. Burnt Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the fantastic response!!!!

The battle has ended, and the search for survivors begins.

The roaring of diesel engines breaks through the stillness of the night. Thick spirals of blackened smoke curl into the cold frigid air from exhaust pipes, as the machines plough through the city streets. The searchlights attached to the roof of the vehicle sweep across the front of buildings, creating eerie shadows. CCG soldiers follow behind on foot, fingers gripped tightly against their weapons, their breath steaming in the cold night air.

Above, a helicopter trails like an angry insect, stirring up the deep snow and whipping tiny shards of ice this way and that, its own searchlight providing aerial cover.

The trucks come to a halt, the breaks hissing slightly until they roll to a complete stop, the engines humming loudly. Large doors on each side open with a sharp clang, discharging a dozen or so clean-up specialists, their boots hit the ground with a dull thud, leaving deep imprints in the snow.

Clad in standard CCG armour, the crew also wear surgical masks as well as elbow length nitrile gloves, and with callous efficiency, they gather up bodies and any remains that are found into body bags. Any bloodstains or pieces of flesh unable to be moved are covered with salt, ruining the flesh, a precaution against any lingering ghouls.

A technician stands at the rear of the truck, vacuum sealing the bags before dumping them into a chute leading to the interior of the vehicle. They’ll be kept here, in this temporary morgue until they can be properly sorted for burial.

The soldier’s heavy boots crunch snow and gravel as they move to stand guard, gloved hands tightening on weapons as anxious eyes dart left and right. Radio chatter sparks between them as they patrol the streets cautiously in small groups.

A beam of light passes through a shop front window, revealing a horrific mural of blood spray across its surface.

Something within flinches from the light, only an inch, but an inch too much. A soldier frantically makes a call through their radio, nerves on edge, and the group raises their weapons towards the window, standing by. Other soldiers immediately converge on the building, preparing to breach the door before a burst of radio static issues a stand-down command.

The passenger door of the lead truck opens and out steps an Investigator.

He moves with purpose, uniform crisp and immaculate with starched collars, a heavy suitcase gripped tightly in one hand. He briefly glimpses at his co-workers gathering missing limbs of the fallen. They’re working against the clock. It won’t be too long until scavenging ghouls catch the scent of blood and gore on the wind and descend like demons to eat their fill.

He’ll be damned if he lets any more of these beasts desecrate his comrades.

He approaches the shopfront, his steps and exterior calm, passing by the soldiers who stand silent and stern, awaiting further instruction. He slides the door open and enters, thumb hovering over the button to activate his Quinque. It takes only a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom and another for him to spot the source of the alarm.

A cat meows at being disturbed and scampers off underneath the couch, hissing loudly and hackles raised.

He sighs, partly exasperation and somewhat in relief. He turns on his heel and leaves, sliding the door shut behind him. He takes a step then pauses thoughtfully. The ground before him has been slightly disturbed. To a passer-by, they wouldn’t have overthought it, assuming it would have been the messy work of a child rolling a snowman.

He, however, is a specialist in the tracking and the capture of Ghouls.

The snow looks kicked and flattened in some places, almost as if someone had been stumbling around with an uneven gait. _Wounded?_   He wonders. Following the trail, it leads towards the door of a home. As he nears, he sees that the pebbles lining the garden have been disturbed.

_Tripped? Collapsed?_

Then, the stench of blood, harsh and tangy, wafts over his senses and hardens his resolve. He readies his flashlight and shines it in through the window. The beam scans the room, passing over a couch, some chairs, a shrine. Nothing overtly suspicious apart from the persistent smell of blood. His instincts gnaw at him, telling him to check it out fully.

He tightens his grip on his briefcase and edges towards the door. He grasps the door handle, turns the knob slowly and meets resistance almost immediately. It’s locked from the inside. The stench of blood becomes even stronger. Someone was here within the last hour, and by the smell of the blood, they could still be in the vicinity. A ghoul, probably. Feasting like an animal on a comrade, cracking open bone and sucking out the marrow.

_Fucking ghouls._

Sudden rage explodes in his chest. He takes a few steps back before delivering a powerful kick to the lock, splintering the wood and shearing through metal. The door swings all the way open and crashes against the wall with a thud. In a flash, he is over the threshold, flashlight in hand, scanning the room like a predator searching for prey.

* * *

Hide wipes his sweaty palms on his trousers, chanting silent profanities as the torchlight shines through the window and searches the room methodically. From his hiding spot behind the couch, he can see the light trail slowly over the furniture, illuminating every nook and cranny. Hide slows his breathing, trying to keep his heart from racing, convinced the sound of pounding blood will give them away. The light loiters far too long for his liking before it vanishes, and darkness settles over the house again.

Kaneki lets out a groan of pain, which Hide quickly muffles with a hand and wild, terrified eyes. He looks down at his friend and spies a pool of blood beginning to stretch out from his side, staining the tiled floor in a crimson puddle. Hide’s expression hardens at the sight, a mixture of fierceness and concern.

_Dammit, I underestimated his wounds._

Hide grits his teeth and tries to clear his head, running through the events of the evening.

In his rush to get to Anteiku, they’d had a near encounter with the clean-up crews. A soldier had nearly spotted them in an alley. Not enough to give chase, but enough to raise suspicion. The last few hours have felt like a very high stakes game of Hide-and-Seek.

The feeling of Kaneki’s warm and light breath against his palm begins to calm his electrified nerves. This clean-up crew needs to get lost, and fast. Hide is growing desperate. He will not lose his friend here, not after everything they’ve been through. He mentally kicks himself for bringing the two of them down this street, especially after seeing the cleaners nearby.

_The proverbial lambs_ _to the slaughter._

The sound of boots on stone approaching the door shakes him from his reverie. He fights back an urge to leap to his feet, to fight. The door handle rattles as their seeker tries to gain entry. The rattling stops and Hide allows himself a sliver of hope before, with a resounding crash; the door is kicked open. Hide crouches down even further, trying to make himself smaller.

_Leave. There’s nothing to see here._

He chants it like a mantra, over and over again. He soothingly strokes Kaneki’s hair, while frantically trying to come up with a plan. He has a fight down another wave of panic. Every fibre is screaming at him to run or to fight.

Hide is ready to fight this intruder, to pounce and strike. He’s got at least a bit of surprise on his side, he reasons. Maybe one strike is all he’d need? He’s prepared to give this person every inch of strength he has if that meant Kaneki would be protected. Hide bares his teeth and curved his spine. Just as he makes his peace and prepares to reveal himself, a burst of radio static shatters the tension.

“Investigator? We’re all clear here. Permission to move on, sir?”

"Permission: Granted."

Their hunter turns on his heel and vanishes as quickly as he came. The sound of a truck’s engine revving, followed by the barking of orders and the slamming of doors comes like a gift from the gods.

Hide can’t bring himself to do anything for a moment as relief floods his body, and he represses an urge to laugh. That was too close. He does nothing for a moment and wills his mind to calm down.

Kaneki ungracefully flops from Hide side and bodily lands into his lap, startling him out of his reverie. It's then Hide notices how pale Kaneki’s face has become. His skin is as white as the snow outside and achingly cold. His lips are turning an odd shade of blue and Hide realises his friend now resembles a ghost more than a living person.

_Come on man, when’s your super healing going to kick in?_

A suddenly realisation strikes him, leaving him reeling at his own stupidity. All his reading on ghouls, and he’s forgotten the most basic rule: Kaneki needs to eat to replenish his lost RC cells, and soon.

The shadows begin to stipple and waver for a moment as prickles of moonlight push their way through the darkened clouds. The air is still and icy. The sounds of battle have faded altogether, the trucks of the clean-up crew have long past him, wheels turning into the night.

With steely determination flooding his veins and hardening his eyes, Hide scoops Kaneki’s body into his arms. He struggles to his feet and takes a few tentative steps towards the ruins of the door. A sticky warmth covers his fingers and Hide presses his fingers against the wound to help halt the blood flow. It gives him strength, and he hurries out into the snow.

To save his best friend from blood loss, Hide will have to do quite possibly the last thing he ever thought he’d have to do. That being said, since this whole thing started on that day Kaneki was hospitalised, he’s been breaking a lot of those barriers.

Hide hurries down an alleyway, desperately searching for a secure place to conceal Kaneki from prying eyes. To his right, half-buried by snow, is a metal grate. A storm water drain, but safe enough for his purposes.

Hide smiles in victory.                                     

Carefully, He lays Kaneki down on the ground, the soft snow wrapping around his body like a blanket. Hide winces apologetically as Kaneki grimaces and groans in pain.

Crouching down, Hide threads long fingers through the iron of the grate, wrapping them around the bars and tugs with all his strength. The grate’s hinges scream in protest, but Hide ignores the nagging fear of discovery and tugs again. This time the grate gives in and swings up and over. Hide lowers it onto the ground as quietly as possible. The wound in his side aches from his exertion, but he ignores it, the fear of losing Kaneki greater than the fear of tearing his clumsy stitches and the pain of his own wounds.

Clenching his teeth, Hide gently lifts Kaneki and manoeuvres him into the safety of the abyss below. After making sure Kaneki is secure and protected well, Hide swings the grate back over the entrance of the drain and hopes the half-ghoul doesn’t wake before he returns.

“I’ll be right back, I promise.” He whispers through the bars.

Hide, with one last look, reluctantly takes off to find Kaneki some flesh to eat. He realises that not only is he racing against time, but he also has to get some bodies before the CCG cleaners do. He remembers seeing the results of a hungry ghoul in a small cul-de-sac not far from his current position. He sets off hastily, his hands balled into tight fists.

The sight of the massacred people is still gruesome, although his senses are a little dulled to the gore and filth of it all. Aogiri has shown no mercy, most of the fallen savaged by horrific wounds. Torsos are all that remain of some, others with ribcages ripped open, skin and the remains of armour dangling from exposed bone and cartilage. His eyes search sadly amongst the bodies, looking for a discarded limb, or perhaps some torn muscle, just something that he can take quickly.

Hide kneels near the closest corpse to him and stares at the woman’s body with detached empathy. Refusing to look at her face, he instead focuses on the deep laceration on her thigh, so deep that the pale yellow of fat and bone is revealed. It wouldn’t be too hard to rip off a chunk of meat for Kaneki, and it would be more discrete, he thinks, than carrying a floppy leg or arm that would beat against his back.

Repeatedly swallowing dry air down his dry throat, Hide squats down and grips a chunk of the soldier’s flesh and apologises profusely before closing his eyes and pulling. The meat feels slippery in his hands, and he has to dig his fingers in harder, flesh catching under his fingernails. After a couple of sharp tugs, Hide feels the tearing of tendons and ligaments, and he falls to the ground, something heavy in his hands. He opens his eyes and gazes at his prize with a mixture of satisfaction and self-disgust.

Thankfully, the cold has prevented the meat from smelling too much, but Hide still has to fight the urge to throw up. The flesh drips blood onto his CCG pants and Hide searches around in a daze to find material to wrap it in.

It's reaffirmed in his mind that he would do whatever it takes to keep Kaneki alive. The devotion he has is deep seated in his very cells that pulse and flow through the core of his being.

Finding a scrap of red cloth, he wraps and then conceals the meat behind a plate of the armour he wears. He tries not to overthink on the sickly pressure he feels of it pressing into the skin of his stomach, creating cold against the warmth.

He looks over to the woman and sighs before he leaves. He wants to say something, anything, to thank her for her sacrifice for his friend, but all his words ring hollow in his mind. Hide turns on his heels and leaves, eyes downcast. He refuses to look back at the carnage he just contributed to, already feeling guilty. He returns to the alleyway, retrieves Kaneki from the grate and prepares for the final stage of the journey to Anteiku.

* * *

Hide faces off the stairs that lead Anteiku, foot and side throbbing, and Kaneki still limp in his arms. Hide attempts to move Kaneki up the stairs as gently as humanly possible, but on reflection, he cringes, it probably wasn’t too gentle - navigating upstairs with a dead leg and heavy weight in his arms is harder than it looks. After a brief struggle, Hide, and his precious cargo makes it to the top of the stairs.

Hide hobbles down the corridor and pauses outside the entrance of the café. Shifting Kaneki’s weight onto one shoulder, he reaches for the handle. He licks his lips and paused, listening for any sound coming from within or from the now empty streets.

There is no light in the hallway, the darkness swallowing what little light makes it in from the street. An unlatched window slowly swings open, pushed by a breath of wind. Hide turns the handle and feels the door stick. The tension mounting in Hide’s stomach reaches a climax and losing his patience, and he drives his free shoulder into the door, putting his and Kaneki’s combined weights against it. It gives way unexpectedly easily, throwing Hide off balance. He staggers for a moment before, in a rare act of acrobatic competence; he manages to manoeuvre himself and Kaneki into the relative safety of Anteiku.

Stumbling about in the dark, Hide’s flailing foot meets the edge of a coffee table, tipping it over. It strikes the wooden floor with a resounding crash. The bell on the door frame lets out a cheerful chime, echoing through the empty building. Hide half expects a chorus of voices greeting him in warm welcome.

_So much for stealth._

Barely a few moments pass before the tell-tale clatter of blades signals the imminent arrival of a helicopter. Someone must’ve heard them and reported it in. Hide drops to the floor, laying Kaneki down beside him. The helicopter’s searchlight flashes against the interior of the building, trailing slowly, casting ghostly shadows over the furniture. It lingers for far too long, but vanishes as quickly as it came, apparently satisfied.

Hide breathes a sigh of relief.

_That one was too close; we’ve got to get out of here._

He rises to his feet and looks about. He always liked Anteiku, its lively, friendly environment was always very welcoming. That Anteiku feels like a memory from a million years ago. Now, the murky gloom casts dull colours over the walls and floor, twisting and deforming into macabre shadows.

A still unconscious Kaneki lays on the ground. Hide tries to arrange his friend in the most comfortable way, propping his head up with tightly rolled dishcloths. A quick inspection tells him that his friend’s wounds still have not healed. Hide removes the wrapped meat from behind his armour and places it on the floor, looking awkwardly at it and Kaneki.

_Kaneki_ _wake_ _up. I’m so not feeding this to you like a bird in the nest._

Kaneki hasn’t stirred throughout, besides an occasional expression of pain, the entire journey to Anteiku, which feels like hours but was only realistically about twenty minutes. He weighs heavier than Hide remembers, a lot more muscular, all traces of baby fat burned off in the event of the last few months. Out of concern, more than curiosity, Hide wonders what has been happening to his friend to bring about these changes.

_What were you doing in Aogiri? Will you ever tell me?_

Hide yawns, the fifth time in the past few minutes as fatigue and exhaustion begin overcome him, the adrenaline in his system burning away. He stands and wanders idly around the interior of the café, trying to stay awake and clear his head. He finds himself behind the counter, massaging his neck and trying to work out the kinks that have formed in his spine.

There’s no manual provided for what to do when your best friend is unconscious. Hide grabs some apples from the fruit bowl and begins to try to juggle them. First two, then three, maybe four if he’s confident enough. Keeping his hands in constant motion seems to ward off the weariness growing in his bones. After a time, he returns them and begins to study the assortment of jars on the shelves, observing and analysing the dark coffee beans inside.

Suddenly a brilliant idea strikes him: make coffee.

He begins to clatter noisily about, pulling jars of coffee beans off the shelf, rummaging around for the kettle to boil water. He’s going to attempt to make coffee. He’s never made a cup in his life, but that’s hardly going to stop him. After all, he reasons, how hard can it be? Humming to himself, he rubs his hands together before his begins his conquest.

He pulls open a cupboard and fetches the china cups and spoons, his hands linger longingly over the sugar bowl for a few brief moments, before bypassing it to grab the coffee filters. Coffee making seems easy enough. Grab pot. Pour water over beans. Let it drip. Add milk or sugar. Drink. Enjoy!

Casting his mind back, he remembers that usually the coffee beans are ground up first, but if he uses the grinder, the noise could alert a passer-by. Hide settles to use whole coffee beans instead, picking up and opening a jar; he smells the earthy, wooden fragrance radiating from them.

In an instant, the smell transports him back to a happier time, when this café was bright, clean and warm. Sighing wistfully, he shrugs his shoulders before pouring the coffee beans in the crisp white material of the filter.

He tries to re-enact something he's confident he's seen a thousand times, but the result isn't the same. His creation resembles dirty water with a slightly oily film. The smell of burning accompanies it, and it stings his nostrils unpleasantly. Hide takes a sip and grimaces at the taste that swirls around in his mouth. He goes to pour the coffee down the sink in distaste when the sound of Kaneki’s breathing begins to change.

It’s like a rising of the subconscious, a film that separates reality and the land of dreams. Hide swears he can feel currents of energy flowing through the room as Kaneki begins to stir and slowly stand up, legs and arms trembling from his sudden exertion.

He doesn’t know why, but his sense of anxiety softens as he watches Kaneki lean against a nearby table, one hand outstretched. His long, lithe body slanted as he supports himself, mouth twisted in a grimace of pain. His other is hand clasped firmly to his side, holding the gaping wound as he whimpers softly.

Hide doesn’t know why he’s watching Kaneki move, he just does.

He blinks and feels rather uncomfortable, a strange sensation for him. In fact, it could be said that he does his best to make other people uncomfortable with his overbearing bright personality. He grabs the coffee that he’s just finished preparing, as disgusting as it is, and makes his way around the corner to his friend.

At that moment, Kaneki resembles a cat with its hackles raised, ready to bolt at the nearest noise.

“It’s surprisingly hard to make coffee, isn’t it?” Hide announces, breaking what feels like aeons of silence between them with a smile on his face, eyes shining happily, “Yo, Kaneki!”

There’s less than half a room between them, but it might as well be a thousand miles. A chasm filled with turbulent feelings that make the air grow cold.

“Hide,” Kaneki whispers, soft and shocked. His eyes are wide and frightened, staring into the very depths of Hide’s soul. His damaged body trembles from anxiety and the effort it takes to keep himself upright.

It’s the first time they have spoken in months, and Hide only now becomes aware of just how lonely he has felt all this time. In fact, it’s the first time in such a long time that they’ve been in the same room together, both of them conscious, coherent and able to take part in the conversation.

Kaneki’s voice has changed so much; it’s lower, and richer somehow, matching the bitterness of coffee.

Hide blinked and matches Kaneki’s stare head on, unwavering and unflinching. The clattering of a nearby helicopter fails to elicit a reaction from either of them, even when the searchlight passes over the building and nearly illuminates the pair. It pauses for a few brief moments, moving on, leaving Anteiku shrouded in darkness once again.

 After what feels like an age, Kaneki suddenly buries his face in his hands. His darkened and bruised fingernails dig into the delicate skin surrounding his eye until small rivulets of blood begin to run down his face. His shoulders shake with barely suppressed sobs.

 

Hide breathes out slowly, the air hissing softly as it passes through slightly parted lips. He feels as though he is nothing but an empty space, a host for the torrent of emotions swirling inside of his heart. Despite all the scenarios he had mapped in his head, of what he would do when they finally reunite, the words seem to disappear in a whisper.

They have known each other since they were children. Ever since that day Hide had decided to claim Kaneki as his friend. A little handshake that started everything. As he watches the most important person in his life hide from him, he is convinced now that Kaneki is undoubtedly and horribly ashamed of his ghoul side, to the point of self-hatred and destruction. Knowing Kaneki, he most likely deeply ingrained into his soul that he’s a monster, a creature not worthy of love.

 _So that’s why you ran. You are afraid of what I would think of you_ , Hide realises, _I could never believe that you were a monster._

He understands now, Kaneki’s disappearance, lack of contact and blatant avoidance was all a desperate act to hide the part of him that he hates. All out of the fear that Hide would reject him, or worse. Hide’s heart trembles at that thought that Kaneki could ever believe that he’d ever do anything but love and accept Kaneki for who he is.

Kaneki remains motionless, his fingers trembling, curling and uncurling into the palm of his hand. A fiery bout of determination blooms in Hide’s heart that sends warmth curling into the tips of his fingers and to the bottom of his toes.

He’s not giving up, not now, not ever. Not as long as he’s alive.

With confident footsteps, Hide moves towards the upturned table and puts both of the coffee cups down, the clanking of China meeting wood rings in the silence that’s cloaking this reunion. He breathes deeply, then charges at Kaneki. He grips the half ghoul’s shoulders tightly and shakes him vigorously back and forth, trying to knock the common sense back into that thick skull of his.

“Hey! Kaneki! How long are you going to ignore my texts for, you jerk? Don’t you know how worried sick I’ve been! Do you know how rough it is for me when you shut yourself out like this? I got so bored that I joined the CCG to find you! Have some consideration man, I haven’t slept properly in six months!”

Hide lets out a long sigh, which turns into a groan at the end, “Don’t you know that rabbits die when they get lonely?”

Kaneki inhales sharply, almost as if it’s his first time breathing freely in the longest of times. He frowns slightly, confused, amused and somewhat concerned at the man who evidently just assaulted him with affection. Kaneki reminds himself that his lifelong friend has a few screws loose in that mop of unruly golden hair.

“Hide, I’m a mo-”

“Kaneki,” Hide interrupts, voice firm, enchantingly commanding and full of finality “…I already knew, man, about all of it. That you’re a ghoul. Who cares about that? I sure don’t! Let's just go home already, I'm freakin’ cold!”

A soft smile breaks over Hides features. It warm, inviting and fills the cold room with pulsating energy that spreads like a warm blanket, comforting and familiar.

Finally, Kaneki responds, it’s a soft movement of the shoulders, and an expulsion of air, but it’s enough to encourage Hide to fill the silence.

“Oh, come to think of it, Kaneki, do you remember that time I got the crap beaten out of me by Mr Nishio?” Hide pauses, taking a deep breath, “I figured what I saw at first was part of a really shitty dream. To be honest, I thought I was dead. I played dead to get through it all, but that guy shows no mercy. Suddenly, you were there… acting all badass like you were some sort of superhero saving me.”

Hides reached for the memory that located in the blurry recesses of his mind, where he was brutally kicked and launched down the dark chasms of the underside of the tunnel. He can remember with clarity his head smacking into the ground with a sickening, ear-splitting crack. Even clearer is the memory of the pain that tore through him and how he watched through misty eyes the events that took place.

“Kaneki, I never got the chance back then, but thanks for going all out to save me.”

The helicopter and its searchlight are back, annoyingly persistent. It makes the soft hair all over Hide’s body stand on end. It’s setting his instincts on fire, and he begins to grow antsy, the realisation that they have lingered here too long set in.

Tears are blurring his vision, Kaneki lifts his head and removes his hands. The small cuts left by his nails have stopped bleeding. Hide looks about the room a little more, giving his friend some time to compose himself.

“You know Kaneki when I looked at the folks in Anteiku, I thought, it sure is nice how they’re so full of life, huh?”

Hide remembers Kaneki’s Anteiku days, his mind travels back to a few months ago where warm light flowed through the window he’s now seated against. It was an oddly peaceful day, no drawn out conversations or stress over university work. An uneasy hollow feeling blooms in Hide’s chest and turns tumultuously about until he forces an easy smile on his face.

“… and there you were among them. It kind of felt like I was the only one being left out.”

Hide looks outside the window, and in the distance, he can see the searchlights of nearly a dozen helicopters combing the streets of the 20th Ward.

“You’ve gotten pretty famous you know? They call you eyepatch” Hide covers his eye as a joke, “What’s with the getup by the way? That in style these days? Ain’t that something! Special make-up that’ll shock even Hollywood.”

The sound of Kaneki’s soft chuckling breaks through Hide’s dramatic rendition of his alter ego. It starts out small before snowballing into full blown laughter that fills his chest with happiness, and he takes it like a man finding water in a desert.

Hide can’t help but smile fondly, the expression settling onto his face as if it was always meant to be there, “Kaneki…You won’t need it anymore… the mask.”

_You don’t have to fight alone anymore._

_I’ll be here beside you._

Kaneki wonders why Hide is smiling at him like that as if everything is okay and there was never any distance or passage of time between them. One day, he’ll understand, but for now, he’ll enjoy the unconditional love and acceptance.

Hide leans back slightly in his chair, making the hind legs squeak in protest against the floorboards as he does so. He rakes a hand through his hair, giving himself that distinctly bed ridden look.

There is a silence, and Kaneki leans across the table and takes a steaming cup of burnt coffee in his hands and tentatively takes a sip.

“Hide, this is horrible.” Kaneki blanched, looking vaguely scandalised and eyeing the liquid concoction as if were about to grow limbs and crawl out of the cup.

Hide can’t help but laugh.

Outside, the snow starts to fall heavier; the rising winds begin to whip up the drifts. To the east, a tinge of red begins bleeds across the sky like spilt red wine over a table cloth.  A sign of a rising sun. The setting is ominous, a warning about the future that lays ahead.

Kaneki doubles over in sudden agony; the wound in his side opens some more. The china cup he was holding in his hands falls to the floor as if in slow motion, shattering and spilling its contents over the ground. The coffee spreads across the floor, soaking into the wooden slats staining the ground in a way that resembles blood. Hide takes a step towards his friend, but Kaneki raises a hand and desperately motions him away.

Flesh, he thinks, he craves, and he needs, needs, NEEDS.

_So fucking hungry. Need to eat. Need to eat NOW._

Kaneki can taste the acrid, coppery taste on his tongue. His mouth floods with saliva as the need to consume rampages through his body, burning his muscles and begging his body to move, to pounce to claw and butcher.

Then, as if summoned, it’s right on the table in front of him like a present at Christmas.

Human flesh covered in red cloth and radiating such a delicious smell that before he realises it, he’s tearing into it with reckless abandon and grinding its tenderness against his molars. Kaneki’s mouth bursts with the sweetness and flavour of thick syrupy treacle. It runs down his oesophagus before pooling in a radiating warmth in his belly. A small part, a tiny part of him recoils at his delight, but it’s pushed aside by the rampaging beast that has taken control.

The wound in his side begins to heal rapidly; the flesh pulls itself together and pinches, sewing itself better than any surgeon could until all traces of the injury is gone. The fresh feeling of warmth floods through his veins as his blood supply is replenished.

_So good, so good, so good._

“Now that is some Wolverine shit right there.” Hide says, eyes widened in awe, making vague clawing motions, “You know? The dude from X-Men?”

Kaneki freezes as if a bucket of ice was poured over his head, and the lingering warmth he was feeling was snuffed out like a candle. He looks over at Hide, expecting him to be disgusted at the violent and gut-wrenching display, or even hesitant and terrified, but all he sees is warm acceptance and understanding.

Hide felt like he was burning up from the inside as he put both of his hands either side of Kaneki’s blood stained face. He looked at him, meeting his stare head on, and there were so many thoughts, so many emotions he couldn't express.

“Going by the surroundings, and the way they’ve blocked off the routes, there’s almost no chance of a ghoul getting out.” Hide furrowed his brow, “I’m sorry to ask this of you Kaneki, but can you fight with all you’ve got, one last time?”

As Kaneki opens his mouth to respond, suddenly the pair is illuminated by a harsh white light. The screaming and whirring of blades split the silence as the helicopter hovers just outside, like an angry insect staring them down. A voice, amplified by megaphone, shouts to them to put their hands behind their heads and come outside.

Moments later, the whole world turns to shit.

Suddenly the smell of burning wood overpowers Hides senses.

Anteiku is on fire. He realises too late that beneath the screaming of the helicopter is the groaning sound of beams struggling to hold up the ceiling. The acidic smell of fuel permeates the room before the roof comes crashing down.

Kaneki throws himself forward, kagune erupting like a red flower from his back. It forms a shield of protection over Hide’s body as molten debris falls from the roof. Hide barely has time to thank him before Kaneki jerks his body off the floor by the collar of his uniform and bodily drags him along as the half ghoul breaks into a sprint.

 _It’s almost comical_ , Hide reflects,  _I was always the more athletic one. Now, look at me, struggling and flailing to keep on my feet at Kaneki’s bat out of hell pace._

He was dragged roughly down a set of stairs and into a part of Anteiku he had never seen before. They continue going down, down, down to the basement of the café that leads them to something else entirely. A thick hatch, locked heavily with thick buckles and latches, that when opened leads to a dark abyss.

Hide doesn’t even get a second to compose himself before his armour on his body is ripped off with freakish and frantic ghoulish strength. Dressed only in a black turtleneck and standard CCG pants and boots, Hide feels vaguely disorientated.

Kaneki’s eyes are wild and frightened like a scared animal. Before Hide can ask what’s going on, Kaneki takes a bite out of his own hand, tearing with his teeth and smears blood all over the remains of Hide’s uniform, covering him in the dark coppery liquid.

It’s over his skin, and in his hair and Hide has to fight back a wave of panic. He tries to comprehend what’s going on as his neurones bash furiously against each other to understand Kaneki’s seemingly psychotic break.

“Kaneki! What-?”

“You smell too human!!!” Kaneki hisses, a terrified glint in his eye. He grabs Hide by the arm and drags him, down, down, down into the cold, all-encompassing darkness of the basement.

Above them, the remains of Anteiku explode in a whirlwind of flames.

* * *

Inch by inch and kilometre by kilometre Kaneki makes them run at a crazy frantic pace, down twisting passageways and tunnels that seemed to slide sinuously down through the bones of Tokyo. They were crawling for what felt like hours through tunnels so narrow that they crushed Hide’s lungs and starved him of oxygen. The fine dust disturbed by his laboured breathing swirled and danced in front of his face, blurring his vision.

He was bruised, bumped and scraped with a bloody cut above his left eye. He grips his side with a hand, as fresh blood begins to leak through the stitches. The further they pressed the damper the tunnel system became. They find themselves standing in what seemed to be a vast underground cavern, carved into the earth by some monstrous talons.

All the way up the walls were small holes like the honeycomb in a beehive. Hide touches one on the wall, and his fingers come up with a fine layer of black dust, the sort of dust he's seen from the decaying of RC cells. He realises with a jolt that something, no, someone, had punched these into the wall.

“Kaneki, where are we?”

Kaneki is quick to respond, “Somewhere dangerous.”

Hide turns, giving Kaneki an indecipherable look, "Well, ain't that something."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for leaving it at a cliffhanger D:  
>   
>   
> re-written and updated on the 12th July 2017


	3. Something Wicked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! :D  
> This chapter is probably my favourite from what I have written so far!  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I did writing it (read: I stressed so hard cause I wanted it to be good haha)  
> Also, just a warning before you start; I use some pretty gross sounding descriptions in this. So it might make you feel a little squicky, but it's nothing that hasn't been done in Ghoul before.
> 
> Enjoy!

They wandered, confused and frustrated, through the endless tunnels. What had started as a simple A-to-B had become a mind-numbing Gordian knot of converging paths, diverging tunnels and frustrating dead ends. As they trudged, it felt as though some celestial entity was playing a cosmic joke on them, constantly bringing hope and excitement and only to snatch it away with nimble fingers. After hours of muttered conversation, only one true thing had been discovered:

_Oh god, we are so lost._

The sewers were a nauseating murky green and in the pale illumination of the yellow flickering lights, the walls look like an old bruise against broken flesh. All around them, reaching from the ceiling and curling underfoot was thick, coagulated slime. Like a vengeful disease, it spreads over the decaying concrete and earth, leaving them pitted and corroded in its wake.

The slime makes the ground wet and slippery, a similar texture and feel to the smooth stones that lie in the murky depths of cold, dark creek beds. Their feet make awful squelching sounds as their heels are being sucked into the mess.  The light reveals the reddish-pink of some kind of algae; it resembles the colour and texture of kagune slime, making Hide’s stomach clench uncomfortably.

The rushing of water through ancient pipes gives rise to a nervous energy that races through Hide’s veins. The noise is so loud that an entire horde of ghouls could be right behind them, and they’d never know it. The incessant roar makes it hard to think. Even when they move away from the bigger pipes, the loose and rusted metal pipes rattle in their housings like a monstrous heart beat.  Up ahead, pressurised water hisses from hairline cracks. The fountain of fine spray humidifies the already damp atmosphere, adding even more noise to the hideous orchestra of the sewers.

There are cockroaches and all sorts of vermin scampering beneath the stones and into cracks and crevices as their feet pass. A moth is trapped in the long silky ropes of a spider’s web, struggling futilely while the monster is slowly crawling towards it with long spindly limbs, eager to feed.

Tiny rodent bones are piled in corners, splintered and snapped and covered with the indents of teeth. Thrown haphazardly around are other bones too large to be from a stray dog or cat. They have yellowed with age and have been split open to get at the marrow. The already damp air now takes on a musty smell of decaying skin and hair.

_Basically,_ _all we need to complete the picture is a legion of rapidly approaching zombies; that’d finish it off nicely._

Hide slips a slime-covered hand beneath the collar of his shirt and pulls the sweat-drenched material away from his skin with a sickening, sucking sound. He coughs chestily, bringing up and spitting out phlegm his body fighting off invading spores.

The tunnel they were following opens into a large, strange area. All the walls ascend to a high ceiling; that curves up to the top, forming a dome-like shape. Long crooked tunnels diverged off in all directions like veins, which circled in all directions. In the wall were holes, looking like they were clawed out by determined hands, some fingernails remain embedded the grainy dirt, torn off by the desperate diggers.

His eyes, now adjusted to the gloom, could see that they were in a labyrinth of tunnels. A myriad of tunnels branched off from this central chamber, possibly spanning the entire sewer system. All around him the floor was littered with dirty, stained sheets, moth-eaten blankets and pillows.

_Rudimentary beds_ , Hide suddenly realised, _There are people living here._

“Kaneki, what is this place?”

“Route V14, on the way through the 24th ward.”

It takes a moment to sink in that anyone can live in these conditions, and it makes Hide’s heart heavy. Their feet slosh through the results of a burst pipe. The water is washing up dirt and debris, and it circles around their boots with a light caress, soaking through their soles and sinking into the material of the already threadbare living area. A child’s teddy floats into their path as the water rises slowly. Even in the semi-darkness, Hide can see the once brown teddy is now a sickly shade of green, mould rotting it from the inside.

They leave the ramshackle camp behind, both alone in their thoughts. It was a depressing sight and realisation that, beneath their own ward, lay some of the worst grottos and hovels imaginable. Their musings are interrupted by an echo in the tunnel, it sounds like a deformed, elongated and warbled laugh that hangs in the air before slowly fading away. Somewhere above them a train rattles by on unseen tracks, sending vibrations through the stone causing the lights to flicker and buzz loudly.

“The 24th ward?”

“It is a labyrinth that ghouls have dug in the undergrounds of Tokyo.” Kaneki pauses to looks down a converging tunnel, discreetly smelling the air, “Touka once said it is the most horrible out of all the wards because the human to ghoul ratio is extremely low.”

Kaneki’s blood in Hide’s hair sits heavily like a halo of crimson, staining the blonde a rusty brown. The tang of copper circles around his nostrils and moves to the back of his throat filling his mouth with its sharp taste. It makes sense now, why Kaneki covered him in the blood. It was to conceal his human smell as best as he could, preventing the aforementioned horde of hungry ghouls from descending upon them like vultures to a wounded beast. Hide makes a mental note to thank Kaneki for that later, once he has had a shower.

“So, that’s why this place is so dangerous?”

Kaneki nods silently and continues on.  The blood trickling from the wound on Hide’s side begins to truly terrify him, and he grasps his wound tightly, fingers digging in and feeling the rough material of the bandages underneath. He supposes that now would be a good time to tell Kaneki about his wound, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He opens his mouth experimentally a few times, but no sound comes out and he only succeeds in getting a mouthful of spores.

_Really,_ _there’s no need to cause panic. Kaneki’s ghoul disguise should be fine anyway._

“From here, we should be able to navigate our way to your apartment.” Kaneki murmurs “That is if we don’t run into any complications.”

They continue walking, for what feels like an age, into the never-ending darkness of the sewers. Hide stares hard at the muscles of Kaneki’s shoulders, where the material is cut to reveal that pale skin beneath, to keep his mind preoccupied with the pain of his wound pulling against his stitches. He feels himself begin to sway dangerously and moves to one side of the tunnel, using an arm to prop himself up. Hide shudders, hot and cold flushes run up and down his body with equal ferocity, leaving his legs weak. The dizziness passes after a moment, but that knowledge doesn’t make him feel any better. He knows now that his body has reached its limits.

_Just a few more hours, just get me to my apartment, and I promise to let you rest._

Hide pushes himself off of the wall and follows Kaneki unsteadily down a steep, sloping tunnel that descends into the very bowels of this underworld. There are electrical wires shorting out on the roof overhead, sending a shower of sparks down into the inky darkness, briefly illuminating the descent before snuffing out completely. The air smells even damper down here, a dampness that sits heavily on the tongue and is laden with metal and soot.

Kaneki walks through the grime and filth with the finesse of a dancer. His body moves with well refined and poised movements, his spine straight and arms close to his sides.Light, almost otherworldly footsteps move without sound in a consistent well-maintained line as if he were following a laid out pattern in front of him.

Hide realises that the gap is between the Kaneki that he grew up beside, and the Kaneki that walks in front of him now is growing steadily larger. In comparison to how Kaneki walks, Hide feels as if his feet have been cut off and replaced with wooden stubs, then unceremoniously pushed to walk a tightrope several hundred feet above in the air without a safety net to catch him.

 Coincidently, it’s the perfect set up for him to slip.

Hide’s injured foot finds the exact spot an especially slimy rock that was hiding amongst the water and the worn leather sole of his standard CCG boot loses its grip. The leg shoots out in front of him in an awkward split, causing his other knee to buckle beneath him. It smacks into the ground with a sound so loud that Kaneki twists his body in a flurry of precise, calculated movements into attack position. Hide winces in pain, before grinning guiltily and announcing:  

“Look Kaneki, I’ve fallen for you!”

Hide laughs it off, flailing his arm around to grab onto something in the wall to pull himself up, ignoring the crunching feel of his cartilage rubbing together.  Kaneki lets out a light laugh at Hide’s antics, before shaking his head with a slight smile and extends his hand to help pull his precious person to his feet. Hide smiles sheepishly and scratches the back of his head when he’s pulled upright, embarrassed by how uncool he’s being.

And then, the pain.

With a vengeance, his side, which had dulled into a slight throb, burst with blinding hot white agony. It starts behind his eyes like the point of a knife and slices around the inside of his throat before diving deep down into the contours of his abdomen, carving everything in its fall.  It spreads through his side like a claw, digging and tearing. Before Hide can restrain himself, he screams in anguish. A guttural, heart-wrenching sound that tears its way up his throat. An anguish so loud that Kaneki has to clap his hands over Hide’s mouth to dull the sound. Fat, hot tears leave clean tracks against the grime and filth on his skin, collecting at his chin before moving down the curves of his throat.

Kaneki forces Hide to his knees by pressing his foot against the back of his kneecaps and moves his body around like a ragdoll. He lays Hide against a mound of wet earth, head pressed against the cooling sensation of dirt while Kaneki slowly pulls up the front of Hide’s shirt.

“Hey, buy me dinner first!” He squawks through gritted teeth. Kaneki ignores his quip and examines his side. Hide tries to smile reassuringly at Kaneki as his face contorts into a look of horror. “I kind of screwed up back there a little bit, didn’t I?” Hide stifled a laugh that he felt come gurgling up his throat, hastily turning it into a hacking cough. His head felt light, and Kaneki’s features blurred and swam before the whole world faded into darkness.

The last thing he hears is Kaneki frantically repeating his name.

*   *   *

Hide wakes to the heavy pounding of his heart inside his rib cage, or at least he thought that was what had woken him up. His honey-coloured eyes open to receive the dim light that soars across his cornea and travels hazily down his optical nerve. His tongue was dry and sticking unpleasantly to the roof of his mouth. His limbs feel like lead, and he knows that even if he wanted to, moving just isn’t possible right now.

He can feel the tendrils of water seeping down the nape of his neck, meandering in little curving lines to the base of his shoulders. It's sending cooling sensations over his feverish body, which brings him temporary relief.  His ribs are hurting, his arms are aching and he can hardly see Kaneki, a few inches in front of him. He can feel a hand running across his head, pulling his matted sweaty hair away from his face.

“Kaneki?” He whispers weakly, “Please don’t leave me again.” Hide sighs and the darkness claims him a second time.

*   *   *

Hide snaps awake suddenly. It feels as though someone has injected a syringe full of adrenaline straight into his heart. His chest feels like bursting as blood pumps furiously through arteries, veins and makes its way through the tiny tunnels of his capillaries. He sucks in big, greedy gulps of damp, humid air into his starved lungs. His world begins to tilt itself back on axis.

Hide is seated upright in is what a presumingly a small cavern, curled protectively in fetal position as he shivers out the rest of his fever. He squeezes his eyes closed as his chest suddenly spasms, throwing him into a coughing fit that rattles his lungs. He presses his head into his knees, the pounding of blood in his ears drowns out everything else. He can vaguely feel a comforting hand running through his hair at the back of his head near the nape of his neck, before trailing down and rubbing soothing circles in between his shoulder blades.

Hide gently lets his forehead rest on the hard indents of his knee caps, already studying the legs that are leaning against his own, before tilting his head to look at the wall of warmth behind him. Hide has been tucked into Kaneki’s body, shoulders framing shoulders, the curve of his back is tucked comfortably into Kaneki’s front. Hide can feel the others muscles move beneath the skin and his breaths puff against the back of his ears.

Hide guesses they’ve been in this position for the majority of his fever, judging by the numbness of his feet. The places where his and Kaneki’s bodies connect are hot, sticky and drenched with sweat. Hide grimaces and turns his head to apologize for passing out on the ghoul when the sound dies in his throat.

Kaneki is smiling at him, that smile, that's not really a smile, but a sort of grimace. Not exactly self-pitying, but more self-loathing. He slowly rises to his feet before helping Hide up and placing him against the wall to regain feeling in his legs. Kaneki then tilts his head mimicking a politely enquiring position, his eyes glinting dangerously.

Hide blinks owlishly instead, meeting Kaneki’s interrogating stare head on.

 “Some dude with a smiley-face mask decided I looked too tempting to pass up. Took a chunk right out of me.” Hide laughs, a little awkwardly, “Not that I blame him, I do look irresistible.”

The air is filled with such contempt that it's practically touchable. Kaneki locks his jaw continues to stare. Hide shuffles nervously from one foot to the other. “You got hurt because of me.” Kaneki begins, “I  _swore_  I wouldn't let you get hurt again… I swore it. Not after last time. You’ve made a mistake, coming after me.”

“Coming after you was not a mistake, and it's  _ **not**_  up to **_you_** to decide my so-called 'mistakes' for me.” Hide shoots back, ignoring the way Kaneki flinches, “You can't protect people from themselves. No matter how hard you try! So stop playing the angsty tragic hero and let **_me share the burden with you!_** ” His voice reverberates through the cavern before slowly fading away, swallowed up by the darkness.

Silence.

“Someone.” Hide corrects when his blood settles, and his sudden rage has disappeared. “Let _someone_ share the burden with you.”

Hide feels uncomfortable, his hair standing on end and a feeling of sudden dread settles in. He can feel eyes on them, watching them hungrily and clicking their unseen jaws. Kaneki opens his mouth to reply but is silenced when a sickening crack echoes around the chamber. The crack is followed by sounds of slurping and violent chewing. Beneath those are the blissful moans of enjoyment. The sound is coming from one of the tunnels on the far side of the cavern, but neither Hide nor Kaneki can pinpoint it.

Hide takes an unconcious step back and one of the stones cracks loudly as he puts his weight on it. It’s a sharp, crunching sound that resembles a box of chalk sticks being snappped in half, hollow and bit harsh.

_Rock shouldn’t sound like that._

Against his better judgement, Hide looks down at his leather clad boot and claps a hand to his mouth as a wave of nausea crashes over him. There are skulls and bones everywhere. Old, broken and split apart, covered in bits of decaying skin and hair. They stretch out before them like a grisly carpet on the floor of the cavern. They’ve been thrown haphazardly around, almost as if a monster had chewed them up and regurgitated them back out from displeasure.

The sounds of chewing and slurping stop. A high-pitched sound goes up from the unseen eater, other voices soon pick up the sound and their cry echoes through the sewers. Kaneki whirls around, panic in his eyes, and commands him to run, but Hide couldn’t move. He felt transfixed by the horror of their situation.

_It really is like a horror movie._

Kaneki eyes the area, searching for their would-be attackers, before his posture abruptly snaps into a crouch. His kagune breaks out of his skin like a waterfall over a cliff face, the red thrumming through the liquid muscle like a thousand shimmering lights. Two upper two limbs of his rinkaku curl in front of Kaneki and sharpen into blades, hanging in front of them like a pair of scorpion stingers. The lower two circle around Hide, flattening and widening in a display of protection, blocking him as best as he could from the prying eyes.

Something is coming, something terrifying if it has his Kaneki worked up like this.

They almost materialized out of the darkness. Horrible, grotesque monsters, no, ghouls with spines and ribs straining against skin crawled towards them. Their emaciated faces twisted into leering grins as copious amounts of saliva and _blood_ drip from open jaws.

They’d be sure to smell him, Hide was, after all, very human.

Kaneki’s blood roared in his veins. The thump of his heart was straining against his chest, and he could see one of the starved ghouls turn its crazed eyes to Hide, ready to strike, claws bared. Their kagune’s broke lazily through their skin. The liquid muscle moves through shoulders, lower spines and upper backs, ripping threadbare cloth and hardening into knife like points.

There were five of them, two females, and three males. It wasn’t long until the smell of human blood filled their nostrils with a delicious scent and swirled in the back their throats with the tantalizing tenderness of the promise of a fresh meal.

The one on his right reared up and charged, a hysterical laugh leaving his mouth, teeth prepared to sink into tender flesh. Kaneki cut him down with a slice to his stomach, forcing him back to his fellow predators, pressing hands against his stomach as his small intestines tried to kiss the floor in a pulpy mess.

“ **No. Don't touch him!** ” Kaneki screamed, a guttural sound that tore at the back of his throat, “ **Pay attention to me**!”

The male laughed at him, a sound like metal tumbling down a mountainside, wholly unnatural as it reverberated through the cavern. A flash of teeth in the darkness, and chanting of **_flesh, flesh, flesh_** was what it took for the remaining ghouls to attack in a flurry of uncoordinated movement. The other ghoul laid forgotten in a pile of his innards.

Kaneki wasn't thinking like a person anymore, he was thinking like an animal- a predator.  His ghoulish instincts were taking over his mind turning him into a lethal storm, the sound of his kagune breaking bone was thunderous. Blood rained down on them like a torrential hail from the heavens. He was crouched down, teeth bared, hackles raised. Low growls fell from the back of his throat that turns into a battle cry as he leapt, pushing the ghouls backwards with two of his rinkaku. His feet are splashing through the puddles of water, blood and gore that have formed.

The male on the ground has recovered. His muscles and flesh have knitted together, although he was still hunched over, hatred written all over his face. With an impressive amount of speed for someone who has been severely injured, he launches himself with reckless abandon at the rinkaku protecting Hide and bites into the liquid muscle with strong jaws.  

Hide has pressed himself as close to the wall of liquid tissue as he can, trying to hear what was happening from felt like the world tearing itself apart around him. He jerks back in shock as a clawed hand punctures through his shield mere inches from his nose. The hand scoops around frantically with blood-stained, taloned fingers. An unnatural, triumphant scream echoes through the cavern, and it takes Hide a moment to realise it’s coming from his assailant. The hand retreats momentarily, only to wrap around the edge of the wound he’s created and pulls and pulls until Hide can see the twisted face of the ghoul, staring at him and grinning toothily.

“Found you,” he sings in a child-like voice, high and mocking. He reaches a clawed hand through the hole to grab at Hide, and a look of unbridled fury crosses his face as Hide continues to scrabble away from him. Suddenly, the rinkaku surrounding Hide breaks apart, wraps around the ghouls body and throws him repeatedly into the side of the cavern. His skull smacks hollowly against the wall with thumps so loud that Hide’s own head starts to hurt. He screams one last time, short and sharply cut off. The rinkaku release him, and he slumps to the floor, his skull caved in, the rest of him a pulpy undefinable mess.

**_“PAY ATTENTION TO ME!”_ **

Hide’s eyes strain as he tries to follow the lightning fast movements of the ghouls in front of him. Blood splatters in macabre patterns over his boots and torn limbs hit the surrounding walls like streamers at festival. Oddly, Hide doesn’t feel very afraid, perhaps because he has complete faith Kaneki will defeat them.  The starving ghouls are ruthless in their onslaught, kagune’s are flying and twisting and stabbing like a live horror show as they try to impale, overpower and overwhelm. They were wild animals tearing and clawing over a singular piece of meat, overcome with ravenous fever. But their attacks were desperate, savage, while Kaneki’s were disciplined and calm by comparison.

“If you don’t let us eat him,” screams one of them, twisting their body so they can launch themselves at Kaneki, “Than maybe you’ll let us eat you!”

They all moved simultaneously like a tsunami-like wave that crashed into Kaneki’s body with a like impact of rampaging bulls. Hide listens to his best friend scream and sees filthy teeth tear into his neck, arms and right thigh. Kaneki threw one bodily off him and rammed one his rinkaku tentacles into another, piercing them through the stomach and up through the skull. The others backed off at Kaneki’s display of violence, and he leant to one side like an injured animal.

 Kaneki leapt back towards Hide, a hand grasping at his injury on his neck while his other arm lay limp at his side. His eyes were dark and furious, but there was also something else that Hide couldn't make out, something in there that just didn't belong. Something…evil?

Kaneki’s spine suddenly snaps backwards in a grotesque display of contortionism, and the pupils of his eyes roll to the back of his skull. A sinister grin spreads across over his visage, bearing teeth in such a predatory manner that Hide begins to feel fear pooling in his muscles and heart.

“Hide,” Kaneki whispers, voice layered over with something foreign and otherworldly like he was speaking through a machine, “It’s time for you to run.”

Hide nearly cries out in panic when Kaneki snaps forward again, multiple kagune’s breaking out his skin with a sickening ripping sound that echoes around and causes the ghouls to freeze in place. The air is flooded with materializing RC cells that gather at Kaneki’s face, concealing his features in a grotesque looking mask. His rinkaku bends and twists and forms a shiny, hard, armour like skin that’s lined with multiple, wicked-looking hooks.

_Kaneki is… a Kakuja?_

“Why aren’t you running, Hide?” Kaneki asks softly

*   *   *

Hide runs blindly down tunnel after tunnel, randomly picking a direction at every new junction. He scrabbles frantically through pipes half his height and rushes headlong through major arteries many times his height. The sounds of combat have faded, and it appears as though the only sound in the whole world is his desperate splashing and the omnipresent dripping of water.

Hide knows the lie of that thought. Every so often he catches a glimpse of an emaciated figure in a side tunnel or a shadow cast by a flickering light up ahead. Now, he moves slower; a mixture of fatigue and caution slows his steps. His side aches, sometimes a dull throbbing, sometimes a lancing white pain that makes him stagger. But Hide knows he can’t stop moving, can’t rest, can’t relax, or they will catch him and eat him. Two of the ghouls had managed to make it past Kaneki and were stalking Hide through the sewers. It felt like he’d been running from them for days, his chest heaving with exertion.

Hide’s leg gives way unexpectedly, and he throws out a hand to break his fall. His palm lands in a pile of slime and slides out from under him, sending him sprawling into the muck. He swears internally before slowly, carefully climbing back to his feet. It’s then he hears it, and his blood runs cold. A soft splashing, getting louder with each passing moment.

_Is that Kaneki? Should I call out? What if it’s ghouls?_ A series of rapid-fire questions shoot through Hide’s mind. His heart pounds in his chest, urging and begging him to action, but his legs won’t obey. He stands frozen in the middle of the tunnel. It takes him a moment to realise that the splashing is getting faster, whoever is coming is hurrying, and coming from two different directions.

_I’m being hunted…Well fine, then you’re going to have to work for your dinner!_ The angry thought gives him the strength to limp down a third, smaller passageway. In response to Hide’s movements, a shriek reverberates through the tunnel and the sound of splashing becomes frantic, furious. Hide breaks into the closest thing to a sprint he can manage, but the shrieking gets louder and louder. He stumbles down the tunnel, heedless to the noise he is making. The slapping of bare feet on stone seems to fill the sewers and, against his better judgement, Hide casts a quick glance over his shoulder.

In the distance, he can see the ragged shape of the female ghoul, the hunger in her eyes visible even from this distance. Hide continues to run, but as he reaches a crossing of tunnels, a dark shape hurtles out of a path to his right and crashes into him. White-hot, searing pain explodes behind Hide’s eyes as he begins to fall, and the ground rushes up to meet him.

Hide groans softly, stunned. His vision swims hazily and his ears ring. Dimly, he is aware of the sound of pounding feet and soon, two shapes loom over him. One crouches down and the stretched skin, and crazed eyes of the male ghoul come into focus. He hisses something unintelligible and gnashes his teeth; Hide feels the flecks of spittle splatter onto his cheeks. He realises that he is literally seconds from being eaten, and in desperation, turns his head to face the female. She stands a bit further back than the male and despite her size, looks every bit as formidable.

“I’m not very fat, you know.” He rasps suddenly “Not very muscular either.”

The male stops talking, taken aback and twists his head around to glare at the other ghoul.

“What I mean is, well done for catching me and all, but…” Hide swallows and tries to sit up straighter. “But there’s hardly enough meat here for one hungry ghoul, let alone two.” He continues, patting his stomach to illustrate his point. The ghouls continue to look between him, and each other and Hide can see the wheels beginning to turn in their insane, hungry twisted minds.

“I guess you could share if you wanted to…” Hide lets the words hang in the air, hoping against hoping that reverse psychology will work on ghouls. The male rises to his feet, fists clenched.

“He’s mine!” He growls in a harsh voice.

“I did all the work; you just knocked him over!” The other ghoul screeched back. “He’s mine; I’m gonna rip him open and let him watch me eat him!”

With a guttural cry, the male launches himself at the female and the pair begin to roll end over end, arms and legs flailing wildly. Hide sees his chance and takes it, scrambling to his feet and starting to limp down the tunnel as fast as he can. The cries and screams of the ghouls echo through the sewers and Hide knows that it’s only a matter of time before one kills the other and comes for him.

Reaching a junction, Hide looks left and right. To his right he spots some kind of opening a bit further down the tunnel and to his left, a yawning darkness bereft of light. Immediately deciding light beats dark, he hurries down the right-hand tunnel. He is almost at the opening when a familiar shriek rings through the tunnels.

_So she won, I’m not surprised. She’ll be after me soon, I better find somewhere to hide_.

Hide emerges from the tunnel into some sort of pumping station. At least, that was before all the pumps were smashed and looted. Now it resembles nothing more than a cavernous…well…cavern. Some icicles hang dangerously from the ceiling, swaying slightly. A foul odour assaults him suddenly, and Hide fights down a wave of nausea.

_At least her sense of smell won’t help her in here._

He begins to search the cavern, looking for a place to conceal himself until Kaneki returns. His eyes scan the room quickly and come to rest on a pile of broken pipes. _Too obvious_. Perhaps one of the cracks in the wall? _Too narrow, I’ll never fit in there._ A groove in the floor, from an old water wheel? _Not perfect, but it’ll do._ He hurries over to it for a closer inspection. The groove is only about three feet deep but is certainly wide and long enough for Hide’s frame. He wiggles his way down into the groove, pulling as much debris from the floor along with him as camouflage as he can.

Hide barely has a chance to adjust his position in the floor before the damnable sounds of wet feet on stone become audible. Hide moves his head around to examine his concealment, the broken tiles and bits of rotten wood will serve as great cover.

_And hopefully she won’t be able to smell me down here._   

With an announcing shriek, the Ghoul enters the cavern. Hide catches sight of something out of the corner of his eye and lifts his head ever-so-slightly. The groove he has buried himself in runs a decent length of the cavern, he noticed that before he climbed in. What he sees now is that the groove runs underneath the wall, and out into another tunnel. An escape!  For now though, he will lie still. Hopefully, she gets discouraged and wanders off to look elsewhere. Hide closes his eyes and tries to slow his breathing and heartbeat.

_Now…we wait._

She moved around the cavern restlessly, her eyes moving to the ceiling and then to the floor muttering to herself as her kagune crawls around her. From his position in the floor all that Hide could see of her were her thin ghostly legs as she walked past his head. She stalked overhead, her eyes darting left and right as she scans the chamber. A soft hiss of breath escapes her cracked lips

“Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Beads of sweat began to form on his forehead as he forced himself to lie perfectly flat, overhead one of the kagune tentacles dripped slime over him, dribbling over his face like a wet tongue. Still he made no sound and didn't move a muscle, only listened desperately for a clue to her movements.

“I know you’re here!”

Hide felt vulnerable as if he were about to wage war in nothing but his bare skin. Nothing to protect him except his wit and his senses, and he only had one arm to work with if he was attacking her. But enough was enough, this had gone on for far too long now was the time to bring the roof down, literally.

“I can **_smell_** you!”

Hide rolls up and out of the groove, leaps to his feet and begins to taunt her. “If you want me, come and get me, bitch!”

In a fit of twisted rage, she spins and throws her kagune towards him. Hide throws himself to the right, landing on his good side and rolling to his feet the kagune smashes against the wall. The stone splits with an ear-shattering crack, and the cavern shakes ferociously. A few of the icicles break loose, shattering on the cold floor. Larger chunks of the ceiling begin to fall, throwing up dust. The dust clouds his vision and fills his lungs, choking him. He coughs, each spasm sends a bolt of pain through his side, and he staggers backwards, just as a massive chunk of the ceiling smashes inches away from where he had just been standing.

As the dust cleared, and the blood from his head wound dripped down the bridge of his nose and the back of his neck, he sensed her move towards him. When he looked up, he noticed, with no small satisfaction, that he  _had_ hurt her.

Her skin was hanging loosely from one side of her face, so it revealed the bone of the skull underneath her right eyelid, and her lips seemed to be pulled almost completely from her face.

"You piece of  **shit** ," she spat, quivering with rage. She moves too fast, grabbing his neck in her cold icy hands, so hard that he felt the red marks left by her fingers burning into the skin. "You will have the  _pleasure_  of watching me eat you alive.”

She throws him bodily into the wall, pieces of broken tile create deformed mosaics on the skin of his back as she pushes up against him, “Should I start with the stomach? Or, maybe I should **_suck the meat right off your fingers_**?”

During her taunting, Hide notices a very large icicle dangling from the roof across from him, swaying dangerously. Hide twists in her grip, trying to escape, to overpower his opponent but the cold hands kept him firmly in place. She grasped his scalp with one hand and used to smack his head into the wall repeatedly.

" **Let go**!" he hollered but the grip was merciless. Hide felt something slide over his foot, climbing steadily up his leg and across his pelvis, making its way up to his chest, neck and face.

" _No_! Let go of me!" He continued to yell, his fingers digging into the ones knotted in his hair that were pulling so violently it felt as if his scalp may rip away entirely.

“But first, let's tenderize you.” With a shriek of gleeful delight, she bodily throws Hide to the other side of the cavern. He hits the floor and rolls several times over before his body draws to a halt, limbs bent askew as blood forces its way out of his lungs. The coppery taste burns his tongue and as he spits it out. The ghoul looks perversely ecstatic.

“Thank you for the meal!” She howls in a sing-song voice

Hide’s eyes trace back to the icicle hanging from the ceiling; he needs to enact his plan now. He scrambles upright and tenses his legs, ready to spring, his mind focused.

“You’re welcome!” he shouts and launches forward towards the confused she-ghoul with all the power in his body. She leaps towards him at the same moment, easily overpowering him and slamming him against the wall, with a loud smack. She grins at him, but a sudden shattering sound causes her to glance upwards, just in time for the tip of the falling icicle to pierce her through the eye. Hide watches her face loosen, jaw slacking in an expression of surprise. The extra weight jerks her head back with a snap, and she topples to the floor.

Hide slides down the wall feeling as if all the breath had been wrung out of him. He sat silently on the floor, his heart racing impossibly fast. Blood begins to seep from the body of the she-ghoul, mixing with the water from the icicle and making strange swirling patterns on the floor.

Hide squeezes his hands onto the rocks that jut out from the walls and uses them as temporary handholds as he forcibly pulls his body off the ground. He presses his eyes tightly closed in order to stop the hot tears at the pain his exertion is costing his body. He didn't think that there was much hope for him now since he is feeling dizzy from all of the blood loss.

The truth was that Hide now expected this dark, horrible place to be his tomb, a dark crypt infested by demons that would never let him leave.

_But at least I’ll have taken one of you bastards with me._

He staggers forwards, forehead sweaty, caked in dirt and shaking uncontrollably.  His breathing is heavy and slow. His footsteps more scrapings along the floor than actual steps. His limbs felt heavy as though each were filled with lead. Hide idly uses his hand to draw lazy patterns on the wall to keep himself balanced upright as his abdomen tightens, his other arm holding his wound tightly. His own blood drips onto the floor and leaves behind a perverse trail of breadcrumbs.

Hide breathed out, although there seemed to be no breath in his lungs. He trudged through the tunnels blindly, but after a time finds himself standing at an entrance to the bone-strewn cavern from before.         

In a field of death and destruction, on a throne of piled massacred bodies, sits a King. His face is triumphant at his fallen foes that lay limbless, in unidentifiable heaps. Jaws ripped from skulls; bones ripped from shoulders, from rib cages, from spines. A halo of crimson lays on his ethereal hair soaked to the roots with blood that fall off the tip of his mask and drips in droplets to the floor. Hide barely has time to register the horrific visage before the King rises from his throne and charges.

He leaps on Hide like a bird swooping in for the kill. A type of body tackle and they both go down in the entrails and filth of the massacre. The warm, sticky remains cling to their clothes and coats their legs, arms and faces. Hide is drowning in red. A bloody handprint is marring the skin of his face from where Kaneki has tried to claw him. 

Kaneki, or what was Kaneki, laughs at him. A sound that seemed to shake the earth and rattle his insides. The whole world felt as though it was about to collapse in on itself and that nothing could save it for nothing could stop  ** _him_**.

Above him, in the blur and mist of his conscious and through the fog-like pain, he felt Kaneki loom over him. Kaneki’s cold bloody fingertips brushed gently against the tanned skin of Hide’s wrist before pinning him down with a vice-like grip, bloodied fingers digging painfully into the flesh as a crazed smile breaks over his features.

Hide exhales a shuddering breath before opening his mouth and saying something he hopes will calm his best friend:

_“He, is Ainu_  
His eyebrows sparkling  
His white beard hangs down his chest  
The thatched mat, spread outside of his chise  
Spread softly,  
His splendid attos  
He polishes, crossed-legged, his makiri  
With eyes completely absorbed  
He is Ainu*.”

Hide can feel the hot trickle of water slip down his right cheek and knew it to be tears; he felt the hiccups of misery build up inside of him fighting for a way out. He'd worked so hard for everything and now this.

“...It's Hakushū… Kaneki...your favourite poem…"

Hides’ shoulders were slightly slumped as if in gentle defeat but his mouth was in a wide, blinding smile, that crinkles his eyes and causes tears to sit on his eyelashes. A sign that he had resolutely made up his mind.

_Maybe being eaten won’t be so bad._

Even in the sombre darkness of the cavern he could still make out the delicate contours of Kaneki’s features. He loved him; there was no arguing about that. He loved him powerfully, and totally in a way, which overcame his senses and spun him about to the wind. He'd never been able to tell him, and he never  _would_  tell him.

_If it means you get to live._

Suddenly a soft rain begins to fall. Warm, salty raindrops fell against Hide’s face. They piled at the corner of his closed eyes, ran down his cheeks and over dried cracked lips making the taste of salt flood his senses. He's dimly aware of the fact that Kaneki is still looking down at him, as if caught by something, his grip as firm, as pressing, as unyielding as ever.

Kaneki is crying silently, tears falling thick and fast. His kagune and mask are disappearing into a fine mist as the RC cells decay.  His forehead presses against Hide’s as his arms let go of his wrists and wrap around his shoulders.  His hands grasp the blonde hair of Hide’s head. The sobs cause his chest to convulse.

“Told you I was irresistible” Hide quips. He laughs softly, which becomes pained coughing, before he wheezes out, “Laughing hurts!”

“Hide,” Kaneki lifts his head, still sobbing, “I’m taking you to a hospital.”

“Good idea.” Hide replies weakly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * = Oishi Ainu no uta (Ode to an Old Ainu) by Hakushū was mentioned in the manga as Kaneki's favourite poem.  
> It is also the poem that's said when he encounters Arima in the manga. (Chapter 139, I think?)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!  
> 


	4. Blind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!!!!  
> Sorry that this chapter is so late D:  
> I was arguing with myself whether or not to post it cause I haven't decided if I like it or not. haha  
> Please tell me this is normal for authors to feel? :P 
> 
> First of all; Thank you everyone for such a fantastic response! It was amazing and I couldn't have done any of this without you.  
> Seriously, you are the ink in my veins.
> 
> Secondly; Just a bit of warning for this chapter, there's a lot of feels (I hope there's feels, otherwise I have failed you)
> 
> Thirdly; Enjoy and let me know what you think :)

The neon red digital clock stands out, even in the brightly lit room.

It reads 5:58am.

The morning light streams into the A&E Department through the gaps in the soft curtains. It reflects off sterile hospital floors, chasing out the last shadows of the night. Far down the corridor, somebody is lying attached to a life support machine, the constant beeps' pulsing rhythmically in the silence.

The doctor yawns loudly while stretching out the knots that have formed in the muscles of her back. She shifts uncomfortably on the wooden bench, and her joints crack and pop as she sits up to check the time yet again. Still 5:58; she pulls a face in disgust.  The skin on her hands is dry and flaky from the powerful antiseptics in the washrooms. Her scrubs are rumpled, a testament to the many hours she’s worked. _Another 24-hour shift, done and dusted._

Her little hidey-hole has been perfectly chosen, positioned as it is behind a small planter, camouflaged by the small ferns. It’s close enough to the emergency door to get there in a hurry, but when she lies down, she’s all but invisible to the outside world. Sure, there are rest rooms for the on-call staff to use, but she did microbiology in school, and she shudders slightly at the thought of what lives on shared sleeping surfaces.

5:59am

The final seconds of her sentence count down slowly, she’ll be out the door as soon as it clicks over to six, her replacement is already here, ready and waiting. Her plans for freedom rapidly fly through her head: go home, drink a bottle of wine, feed cat, watch a marathon of dramas and sleep for three years. Yes, her plans are flawless, and nothing will stand in her way! She almost cackles with delight.

Her evil plans for rest are rudely interrupted by the thudding of a palm on the glass. She lifts her head and looks towards the front of the building, half-hoping it’s a bird that has hit the window. There's yelling, someone yelling for help, yelling so loud that even through the thick glass, the muted cry travels far down the corridors. The doctor scrambles to her feet; finger tips spread on linoleum, as her wearied mind gears up for yet another patient. _Would it have been too hard to wait ONE minute? Really?_

Immediately feeling guilty for her thought, she attempts to smooth her scrubs and begins to survey the scene. A bloodied handprint marks one of the double sliding doors, along with multiple other stains she assumes are from a clenched fist striking the glass. As she reaches the entrance, she waves her access card over a locking mechanism, and the doors hiss open. In front of her stand two young men, one arm wrapped around the other's waist and the other, still clenched, hangs by his side.

That’s when she notices the blood. The young man’s companion condition looks worse for wear, from the amount of blood she can see beginning to pool at his feet, its plain he doesn’t have very long. As if in response to her thought the wounded man coughs, his chest spasms and blood sprays from his mouth, running down his chin and adding to the pool beneath him. His companion gently lowers him to the ground before rolling him onto his side.

She approaches the white-haired man with cautious, careful footsteps and begins to speak to him in a calming tone. Theres a wild panic in his eyes, like a caged animal, but as he turns his head to look at his companion a soft, yet sad, smile crosses his face. Squaring his shoulders, he demands once more “Help, please!”

 The doctor takes a slow breath in and she takes the briefest of moments to compose herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the digits of the clock she had watched so carefully for the last hour begin to shift ever so slightly.

6:00am.

She spins on the spot and calls out for the nurse to bring a stretcher before turning back to face the duo. “Is this your friend?” she asks quietly, calmly.

“Yes.” The young man croaks back, his voice choked with grief and his eyes downcast, staring at his friend’s pale face.

“What’s his name? What’s yours?”

“Hide. Kaneki. He-He’s Hide, I-I’m K-Kaneki.” The young man’s white hair is stained almost completely red with blood though miraculously, he appears unharmed.

“Kaneki, you’ve done an excellent job, but we’re going to have to take him away for a bit, ok?” She touches the back of his hand with a dry finger “You’ll have to let him go for a little while, we need to help him” she continues soothingly. Her soft words are interrupted by the rattling of wheels as the stretcher approaches. Two of the nursing staff accompany it and in a single swift movement they collapse the stretcher and move his stricken companion into the confines of the trolley. They quickly lift it back up and begin to wheel it away. The doctor strides alongside, issuing commands to various staff as they materialise.

“Get me a crash cart to theatre 01!” She demands, springing into action with clarity, speed and poise only a decade of training can bring. “I need a ventilator unit there as well. Quickly now! We may need to do a tracheostomy.”

She places fingers against his pulse as the cart begins to move, feeling the butterfly wings beat against her fingers, slowly and weakly, but still there. “Get the lab on the line, I need 70 units of O-neg up here immediately.”

The emergency room doors bang open in their haste, creating a resounding boom to fill the awakening hospital. The sterile room assaults Kaneki’s senses with a strong metallic smell that causes his ears to ring painfully. He can feel the underlying rust of blood from previous operations, and it makes his throat clench painfully.  They’re strapping tubes to Hide’s body, and so many needles are being pushed under the tan complexion of his skin. A nurse, sensing his unwillingness to leave, manoeuvres him into a viewing room to see the doctors in action.

The doctor is shining a small light in Hide’s eyes, swinging it back and forth and watching the pupil contract. She clicks her fingers near his ears, seeking his reactions to the noise, “Possible brain damage,” She announces grimly, “Full extent unknown.”

A nurse manoeuvres a long tube down Hide’s throat, with careful, steady hands and a stern expression on his features. He begins securing the mechanical lungs into place with medical tape while the doctor cuts away the material of Hide’s uniform with scissors. “He has multiple abrasions, suspected fractures in the right knee, skull, left wrist, ribs T4 through T8, likely to be internal hemorrhaging.”

The staff finish removing the remnants of Hide’s uniform, revealing the wound in his side. It’s roughly the size of the doctor’s fist, and it has been badly sewn together. The torn flesh has a soft hint of putrefaction about it, and the medical staff look at each other in astonishment. The doctor clicks her fingers a few times to refocus her team before yelling out requests for a plethora of drugs and medicines.

Hide begins to convulse, his body seizes as if thousands of volts are racing through his veins and causing him to writhe in agony. The medical staff gather around him, frantically securing limbs and manoeuvring Hide’s body, so he doesn’t bite off his tongue. – “He’s seizing! Get me the cart, prepare de-fib!”

The doctor grabs the two paddles the attendant passes her, rubs them together and looks down at her now limp charge. “Kid, if you want to live you better start fighting. CLEAR!”

Kaneki doesn’t even realise he’s yelling. His cries are like a symphony of someone’s whole world being torn apart, hands balled into fists and hitting the glass in desperation. Kaneki realises that there are hands on his shoulders and around his waist, dragging him backwards from the cool glass of the window. It takes nearly all his will power to not instinctively turn on the people and rip them limb from limb. He's still yelling Hide’s name, and he can just make him out, lying on a table surrounded by doctors pushing air into his body with mechanical lungs.

The only thing Kaneki can hear is the thunderous roar of his own heart, reverberating in his ears, as everyone’s voices grow distorted. It feels as if his head is being forced underwater and held until he’s starved of oxygen. Fighting away from his captors, he presses up against the glass and slowly begins to fall to his knees. One of Hide’s eyes slowly opens, unfocused and hazy as the drugs begin to take effect. Hide lifts his hand, stretching fingers towards him. Then the curtains are abruptly pulled shut.

The sounds of Kaneki’s sobs echo through the hospital.

*   *   *

There are so many hands, and so many voices and they’re dragging him into the dark abyss of the deep sea with the spindly fingers of monsters. Hide’s pulse beats in his ear with ghoulish clarity; it’s loud and fast, too fast and it hurts. He can smell the antiseptic, and the metallic taste of ammonia fills his mouth and rattles against his teeth. His body is becoming numb, not responding and not moving as if he’s been frozen on spot.

_I nearly killed him._

“Come on darling,” a nurse soothes, wrapping cautious hands around the muscle of Kaneki’s biceps. They steadily move him up and around, his body limp and unresponsive “The doctors are doing all they can now. Let’s get you cleaned up. You’ll feel better after you’ve bathed, okay?”

_I nearly ate him… Hide._

“That’s right, this way.I’m taking you to the showers. You can take as long you like, alright?”  The nurse manoeuvres him into a brightly lit, tiled room, where a mirror runs the length of one wall. It’s slightly warmer in here, as the pipes thrum with hot water. Kaneki is becoming dimly of aware of where he is.

_**MONSTER.** _

“I’m leaving you some clothes on the chair here.” The nurse continues to soothe, placing the clothes above in a neatly folded pile, and begins to leave the room. “When you’re ready, we’ll see you outside. We’ll let you know if anything happens. Take your time.”

The silence is so heavy it hurts his head.

Kaneki stands there for a moment, completely frozen before he turns around the tiled room they have pushed him into. He places his hand on the wall, heart pumping frantically in his chest as he waits for the world to come back into cohesion again.

The door swings shut by itself and Kaneki finds himself slipping down onto the floor where he puts his head between his legs and tries to swallow down the bile that his stomach is threatening to hurtle up through his oesophagus.

In almost psychotically frantic movements, he rips the the heavy meshed fabric of his battlesuit of his body into ribbons, discarding the material into a pile on the floor and allowing the cold air to assail his skin with a biting vengeance.  Kaneki needs to get rid of the overwhelming smell of blood, of Hide’s blood, off his skin and out of his hair.

_I nearly killed him! I nearly killed him!_

He turns the shower taps on and sticks his pale hands under, watching as the blood goes swirling out and around the material and yet more seeps back up to the surface again like a molten eruption. He bites down savagely on his lower lip, teeth tearing through the skin as his mind feels a little hazy and slightly disorientated as the overpowering urge to eat fills his stomach.

_I’m a monster; I’m a **fucking** monster!! Oh God, Hide…. Oh god._

Kaneki allows himself to slump against the wall, the hot spray working into every crevice of his aching muscle as a slew of filth and blood circles around the drain, being sucked under into the abyss below. He can hear the pipes which the water run through, thrum ever so lightly and for a while it drowns out the sounds of Hide’s failing body trapped amongst the needles and machinery.

_I didn’t want any of this._

_It’s all my fault._

Kaneki looks at his reflection in the mirror with discontent, shoulders heaving. The eye-patched ghoul looks back at him, the blood red eye of his kakugan shining eerily. His breathing slowed as the ghosting of invisible penetratingly cold hands flowed up and over his torso, gripping to the skin of his face, suffocating him, morphing his features into the demonic facade of the centipede. Kaneki grabs the mask and fights against it, causing the edges to become ragged and the skin under his fingernails to throb. It was like part of his mind had been cleaved open and left bare for the vultures to feast on. The hands turned corporeal, feminine, with painted fingernails of crimson red, as the laughing twisted face of Rize appeared behind him.

_What do you want?_

“I got rid of you! You’re gone!” Kaneki snarls at the foggy mirror, as her giggles penetrate the air, echoing around the bathroom and rebounding off the tiles in a psychotic chorus.

 _" **Go away!** "_ Kaneki yells and he turns on all the hot water taps in the room, flooding it with a sudden rush of steam and staining all of the glass in a sheen of fine mist.  He wipes a mirror with frantic hands and breathes a sigh of relief as the centipede mask and Rize have dissipated into the moist air.

_She’s gone. She was never here.  She’s gone. She’s gone…_

*   *   *

Kaneki sat alone in a corner where he hoped nobody would find him; a coffee gripped tightly in his pale, cold hands sends spirals of steam up to his face. Depression settled over him like a storm cloud, lashing his body with torrential rain and making him achingly cold. It reminded him of when he was a child before Hide had saved him - when the encompassing feeling of loneliness plagued his days. The wall his spine is pressed against is cold, it seeps through the fibres of the cotton scrubs he’s been given to wear. The nubs in his spine are pressing hard against the back of his pelvis and digging into the muscles beneath his ribs.

Thoughts are whirring in his mind at break-neck speed, colliding and fragmenting, too fast to process. Kaneki flinches and places one hand on his face, the bottom of his palm digging into his eye socket with heavy pressure, as he wishes they'd all stop. He'd wish for the silence again if it didn't remind him so much of death; he'd ask for sleep if it meant escape, but it doesn't. It didn't matter, nothing mattered, and everything was horrible. This place, this situation – Fuck, Hide _… he shouldn't have come. I was only trying to protect him… and now look what happened!_

Kaneki draws his knees up to his chest and hugs them close. He starts rocking slowly backwards and forwards, watching the liquid of the coffee move, lapping at the edge of the cup like waves at the beach. He was still shaking slightly from the post-adrenaline rush but unable to stand up and walk about or do anything useful. So he sat there alone, unable to cry but wanting to.

Wanting to so desperately that he felt the feeling swimming up his throat in a desperate attempt to break out in the open, he opened his mouth, closed his eyes, felt the red hot scraping feeling rasp against the inside of his throat but couldn't make a sound.

 _This isn’t_ _the time to be melting down._

The thrumming sounds of machines, whirring against white-washed walls that seem to dig right into the back of Kaneki’s teeth. It causes his senses to go haywire as the sharp, tangy smells of disinfectant and chemicals flood his senses. The instant mix carries the aroma of Hide’s honeyed blood, tantalizing his taste buds and leaving a sugary taste in his mouth.

_Honey goes drip, drip, drip…_

When the taste of blood fills his mouth and makes his stomach jolt in hunger, Kaneki opens his eyes are stares in horror at the blood-filled Styrofoam cup. He shakes in spot, instinctively throwing the cup away from himself and brings his hands to grasp into his hair, pulling the platinum strands. He watches the drink fall almost in slow motion with wide, terrified eyes, but as it hits the floor, the  mini tsunami of liquid that spills is the earthen brown of coffee.

_Calm down._

He could feel the panic building up in his chest as bodies thundered around the emergency room, the whole crowd picking up momentum as they frantically tried to piece Hide back together. The smell of flesh permeates his nostrils. Kaneki closed his eyes and willed his heart to slow down, and the horrible clenching in his stomach to ease.

_Calm down._

There was far too much at stake to let his senses get the better of him. He was becoming less human, more monster-like, the essence of his soul slowly leaking through his pores and evaporating into mist.

_One thousand, nine hundred and ninety-three, nine hundred and eighty-six…_

His arm falls away from his face, and unintentionally he starts to crack his knuckles, destroying the pockets of air inside the joint. He becomes breathless and then dizzy, very dizzy, and then sick. He was sick, he was insane, he needed to leave and do what he'd meant to do from the very beginning of all of this. Not because he wants to, but because there is no other choice.

 _Hide,_ _if you'd never met me…._

Kaneki moved and seemed to feel Hide's heart beating beneath his own skin, the short sharp exhalation of breath, the blood rushing through arteries and veins as doctors tried to save him. Images flicker through Kaneki’s mind, of a happier time, and it's like he's watching a movie of what life was like before all of….this. It’s filled with a turbulent gold, those laughing honey eyes, wide cheeky smiles and never ending jokes at his expense.  Without acknowledging it, Kaneki's lips curve at the corners very slightly. Then it falls, as Kaneki looks over to the closed curtains, and it feels like some evil entity has sucked all the life out of the world, leaving an all-encompassing darkness behind.

_Don't you see I've ruined everything?_

"What are you doing?" A cool calm voice asked him suddenly, a pair of legs had suddenly appeared in front of him.

Kaneki doesn't say anything, ragged snippets of hair trailing messily across his eyes in a ringing silence.  The doctor let the silence spiral for a while and then sat down in the seat beside him.

“I spilt coffee everywhere.”

“That’s okay.” She stretches, releasing a big yawn, tilting her head side to side to release the built up tension, “Just remember to clean it up. Otherwise, the cleaning crew will have our heads.”

“How… How is Hide?”

"He lost a lot of blood.” She states, with an air of professionalism, “Too much, in fact. It was good you brought him in when you did. Thankfully I was wrong about the brain damage; he’s going to be fine.” She looks at Kaneki with tired eyes as a fond smile breaks over her features, “He’s a fighter that one. He’s held on with everything he had, we’re all amazed, considering his condition. He must have an excellent reason to stick around. Clingy Girlfriend?” She smiles wearily.

Kaneki folds a little in on himself, trying to make himself as small as possible while self-debilitating thoughts run through his head at breakneck speed. His shoulders begin to shake, slightly in relief that’s tinged with desperation.

“He’ll have a ventilator helping him until we’re sure he can breathe on his own. Other than that, your friend’s recovery looks promising, as long as he doesn’t push himself too hard anytime soon.”

Kaneki yawns, forcing water to gather at the tear ducts, sitting on the lashes that frame his eyes. He can feel the doctor’s penetrating stare boring into the back of his skull, and he shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny.

"Go home, and go to sleep right?" she asks, playfully, although in truth the doctor looks like she’s about to collapse into an undignified heap on the floor herself.

His stomach feels clenched... He doesn't think he could sleep even if he wanted to.

"You can come back tomorrow when you’re feeling rested." She pauses, and her face lights up as a great idea crosses her mind, “You can bring him some clothes too, and maybe something to read? I’m sure Hide would appreciate some creature comforts, yeah?”

Kaneki grits his teeth and stares hard at the floor, grey eyes focusing as he wills everything to be still.

"He's not going anywhere, you know that don't you?" she soothes, “Go on, go home and go sleep before I have to drag you out. Don’t think I won’t.”

Kaneki smiles.

That's if you can call it a smile: he tilts his head back as he does it, cruel twisted line working up the sides of his mouth.

“You’re a good friend, Kaneki. Most don’t stay.” She states matter-of-factly, before turning on her heel and disappearing back into the theatre.

*   *   *

Hide’s apartment has a wooden door and overflowing mailbox. The door is guarded by a fat-bellied gnome, and an odd-looking cactus that Hide bought as a joke because it reminded him of a Pokémon. Kaneki toes the welcome mat and lifts up the right corner where Hide’s spare key is hidden still, he notes with no astonishment and picks it up wondering about his friend’s lack of security.

The key slides in the keyhole, jiggling a little as levers lift and the door unlocks, eager to escape the cold that’s settling into his bones, and shuts the door behind him with a sigh of relief.

A quick glance around that apartment reveals there to be takeaway food packages stuffed into the overflowing bin; a stash of manga propping up a crooked table with non-matching chairs; drinking glasses and cans of iced coffee are littered all over surfaces and a shoe is somehow stuck in the umbrella stand. There’s a pillow and blanket thrown on the floor of the living room surrounded by discarded socks, and piles and piles of books that have post-it notes with haphazard scrawl splattered thoroughly around.

The walls are liberally splashed with a multitude of posters ranging from American bands to manga, which cover nearly every surface with bright colours, and Kaneki smiles at the familiarity of it all.

It was odd at first, that Hide lives alone, but has a two-bedroom apartment with a shared bathroom, and living area. Kaneki used to ask why when Hide first moved in, but Hide just smiled and said "didn't read the fine print" as he sheepishly scratched this side of his face before blinding him with a wide grin.

The truth of the matter was, and Kaneki only realised it after the he signed the papers to his own modest and neatly furnished apartment, was that Hide had rented the two-bedroom apartment because he had wanted Kaneki to move in with him. 

Kaneki assumes that he’s been kicked out of his own apartment by the landlord because ‘the dead don’t pay rent’ and he imagines his aunt, his legal next of kin, selling all of his property for what pitiful amount it would gather. It’s not like he had much to his name anyway; just an impressive book collection and a couple of quality electronic goods. It saddens him that his father’s books may be lining the wall of junk shops, dust beginning to settle on well-loved spines.

He walks down the corridor and pauses outside a door, eyes frozen over the wood as he reads what looks like a homemade sign held liberally together with tape that reads ‘Ken’s Room’ with what looks to be an abstract picture of his face. Kaneki blinks slowly before raising his hand to the handle.

Cautiously he opens the door a fraction. Inside the curtains are drawn, and the light creeps drably from under the thick material, dissipating after a few centimetres into the overwhelming darkness.

His eyelids feel insurmountably heavy as he looks at boxes upon boxes labelled “Kaneki’s stuff”, some with cartoon pictures drawn on them and others with the areas the boxes' content belongs in. Shoved into a corner against the wall was a single bed, and on the opposite side of the room was the elaborate bookcase that himself and Hide built, with most of his books already placed in their homes. He notes fondly that’s his father’s books are displayed proudly, completely dust free. Next to his bed, his table was placed with a brightly wrapped present sitting on top of a laptop, which has a note that read’s “Happy Birthday Kaneki! You’re old now.”

_Hide, you amaze me._

_I nearly lost you because I wasn't strong enough._

Kaneki picks up the present and feels its weight in his hands, it’s heavy, but only slightly so. It has the same weight and size of a book, and for what feels likes the longest of times, genuine excitement that wasn’t related to bloodlust, floods his brain making him giddy with euphoria.

Kaneki gets distracted by a banana poster on his wall and makes note that one day he’ll ask Hide what and why. Mostly why, he decides with the smallest of smiles.

He holds the wrapped present with both hands and stands in the centre of his new room in silence, staring at the messily wrapped gift. He feels lost in a sea of memories and feelings, the effort Hide had put into looking after him even when Kaneki tried his hardest to stay away leaves him reeling. He slides a finger underneath a layer of paper and slides it along, preparing to break the seal.

As he begins to tear the paper, a vision of Hide in the hospital swims up to his mind’s eye. Kaneki decides not to open it just yet. _When you’re better, I’ll open it in front of you._  He places the gift back on the desk where he found it and slowly steps out of the room.

As he shuts the door, the sound of rustling papers nearby sets off alarm bells in his head. He spins on the spot; hands raised and ready to fight, only to find himself facing the closed door of Hide’s room. In the old days, Kaneki wouldn’t have had the courage to go into Hide’s room, or anyone’s room for that matter, without permission. But these are not the old days. A little on edge and somewhat startled, he opens the door and steps into Hide’s room.

The curtains are drawn, but the blinds are pulled all the way up. It also strikes him that the room is obscenely tidy, unnaturally so in fact: all the surfaces are empty, the draws of the dresser firmly closed and the wardrobe shut. The mirror too, sits at an exact angle, reflecting the opposite wall.

There's a picture in a frame propped up near the television, light stippling across it from underneath the curtains.

They took the picture on his eighteenth birthday, which would explain why it's slightly lopsided, having being set up on self-timer by a not-so-sober Hide. Strictly speaking, it had been a very excitable Hide who thought it was a fantastic idea to pick Kaneki up at the same time the camera clicked. Hence the expression of complete startled surprise on Kaneki’s face, and look of triumphant glee on Hide’s.

Kaneki finds himself staring at it for a moment.  There's an uncomfortable hole of guilt in the pit of his stomach.

The room smells of ink and paint, and it’s making the tip of his nose itch with discomfort. It was strange, to say the least; maybe that’s why Hide’s room was strangely empty? Kaneki can recall with clarity that Hide’s room used to be full of pictures, whether it was study notes or books, or anything to do with the numerous amounts of committees he somehow ending up being recruited into.

Kaneki is on edge by the strangeness of it all, and he begins to circle around the room trying to locate the undercurrent of graphite and the faint alcoholic smells from permanent markers. His eyes become fixated on the farthest wall, and he takes steady steps towards it, and it becomes abundantly clear that this wall is source of the cocktail of smells. Kaneki has been in Hide’s room enough to know that wall used to be a different texture, and colour, and the closer he gets to the wall, the stronger the metallic taste becomes.

With nimble fingers Kaneki touches the wall, which releases a faint sound of air, almost like paper hitting a surface from underneath his hand. Too soft to be heard by human ears, but Kaneki isn’t all human anymore. This must’ve been the sound he heard from outside, he decides. A fine powder covers his fingers, and it has the smell of glue and the consistency of powdered sugar. The wall feels rough under his fingertips, almost as if covered in sandpaper, and Kaneki can feel something that vaguely resembles veins underneath. Now that he notices, in the corners, the sandpaper-like material is curled at the bottom – as if someone has been pulling the material off and on. It reminds him of the corners of a well-loved book that has folded pages from the constant use of loving hands.

Curiosity gets the better of him, and Kaneki reaches up and peels at one of the corners with delicate fingers and the paper falls to the floor, gently twisting and turning with its descent. Its rests on the carpet like discarded feathers.

Kaneki eyes widen in despair when his eyes meet his own blank stare, and he quickly twists to look over his shoulder to see if Rize’s looming presence has returned. Nothing. When he calms down, he returns his attention to the wall and encounters his stare again, or what was his stare from eons ago. A missing person’s poster is tacked into the middle of the wall, and the smell of ink fills the air, making the room even more pungent with its metallic scent

Almost frantically, Kaneki starts to pull the rest of the paper off, fingernails scraping the material underneath in his haste. The sound vaguely resembles the sound of nails being dragged down a chalkboard, and the scratches almost beat in time with his pulse that’s beginning to beat rapidly under his skin.

Stretching from the ceiling and spanning to the carpet underneath his feet, the wall is covered in pictures. Some torn out of books, some taken with a camera and developed. There’s newspaper articles and Hide’s quick, messy handwriting that loops and curves over every available surface, staining the white paint permanently. Everywhere is Kaneki’s face, from a missing persons poster too far away snaps caught on a camera late at night of the Eyepatch Ghoul, from witness reports and rumours of his sightings.

There’s notes on the walls, of Hide asking questions, of Hide theorizing what Kaneki’s intentions are, of Hides theories on what’s happening in the CCG, of notes trying to locate the doctor that preformed the organ transplant to Hide wondering about Kaneki’s health, pictures and news articles anything possible related to Kaneki’s disappearance.  It’s a collage of the gaping wound he bestowed on his best friend, which has festered into a large scar that covers the entire length of the wall with knotted flesh.

There’s pictures of people Kaneki considers precious to him, and their status of how they’re doing and if they’re safe. There’s an obscurely drawn picture of Touka with a graduation cap placed on her head with a ‘good luck on your exams!’ that Kaneki can just make out if he turns his read to the right, and squints his eyes. There’s another note as well, one that sends chills reverberating down Kaneki’s spine that settles in his toes with a burning all-encompassing rage.

“Information about Anteiku has been leaked to the CGG. Status of patrons has been compromised. Who is the rat?

...Kaneki, I hope you’re okay.”

Kaneki falls to a slump on the floor, a myriad of emotions flooding through every crevice of his muscles, rooting themselves deep into the fibres and rendering him immobile. He can only stare in shock at all the information Hide has gathered, and how much his best friend loves him and cares for him. Its ripping a gaping hole in the bottom of his stomach as feelings of unworthiness crash in a tumultuous ocean of self-loathing.

“What did I do deserve you?” He whispers to the wall

Grasping his face painfully in his hands, powerful haunting sobs rip themselves out of his body as tears fall freely from his eyes, splattering on the discarded paper surrounding his person. Kaneki can feel the ghosting of hands again, but instead of the cold penetrative talons of Rize’s hands, these feel warm and comfortable, soothing and kind. They loop over his shoulders, and brush tenderly against the skin of face and lashes of his eyes, massaging the pain away with gentle, forgiving fingers as a familiar voices floods into the dark pool that is his mind, chasing the shadows away.

_“Kaneki…You won’t need it anymore… the mask.”_

Slowly, his sobs die, and when he looks back up at the wall, an expression of determination covers his face and ignites his body in a feeling of belonging that he hasn’t felt in such a very long time. He’s sealing his fate, right here, right now, and he can almost feel the cosmos realign and smack together in an explosion of stars and he realises something he should have never forgotten.

 _I don’t have to fight alone anymore._  

*   *   *

Like ripples on the surface of a pond, Hide’s mind begins to shift as he begins to wake. His eyelids feel heavy as he looks up with hazy eyes at the ceiling of a room he doesn't recognise, taking in the criss-crossing textured pattern of the roof.  He winces as pinpricks of light dance across his eyes, making them sting to the point he clenches them tight in protest. Slowly he leans up onto his elbows, and he feels vaguely sick as a wave of dizziness overcomes him. Golden strands of hair are sticking to his clammy forehead and blotchy black dots fill his vision, causing him to fall back in an ungraceful, dizzied heap on the hard mattress.

Hide opens his mouth experimentally, cold dry air rushing to the warm insides of his cheeks as he tries to form a word. No sound comes out. The air makes his throat dry, and itch as if he’s swallowed a spiky plant, and he begins to cough. Collecting himself, he briefly he allows his mind to reflect on past and current events, where he is now is.

He’s in a hospital, thank god, Kaneki got him here on time. He smiles painfully, imagining having to spend the rest of his life as a ghost. He looks around the room and sees the IV drip and follows the tubing down to the cannula in his hand. The rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor fills the room as the green line dances in obvious reassurance that he’s alive.

His torso is covered in bandages, that covers his stomach and wraps up around his shoulder, as is his right wrist and as his brings a hand up to his hair, he can feel the bandages that wrap around his head like a halo. The chair next to his bed has a neatly folded pile of blankets on it, almost as if it has remained empty for a long time. There’s a jug of water with an empty cup sitting on the table beside his bed, and empty vase meant for flowers next to it. He tries to reach for cup of water but can’t move his arm, too weary and sore, and it sends pain down his side.

_That’ll be right, I survive hell and back only to be defeated by dehydration._

The door opens, as a nurse enters the room, clipboard in hand, and extremely focused as she changes the dials on some kind of pain medication administering machine near his bedside.

“Hello!” he croaks with a smile, and tries to laugh at her startled expression, but it turns into a rasping cough instead. The nurse recovers from her surprise and hastily pours him a glass of refreshing, cold water to which Hide gulps greedily down. The effect is instantaneous and he can feel the cold water swirl lovingly around his stomach, and he downs another and another and thanks the nurse liberally for saving him from death by dry throat.

“Excuse me, Nurse?” Hide asks, stomach filled with knots and butterflies, just after the nurse announces she’s going to find a doctor to give him a check-up, “has anyone visited since I’ve been out?”

“No.” She announces, as the water in Hide’s stomach turns to ice at her admission, “Not since my rotation, sorry.”

“Oh. Do you know how long I’ve been out of it?”

“About two days.” She smiles, sadly, and exists the room, leaving an aching emptiness in her wake.

 _So he left me alone again._ All the warmth in the room suddenly evaporates, Hide’s heart feels like lead in his chest. He fights back the urge to cry, and instead brutally gnashes his teeth together as he tries to muster the will to be angry at Kaneki,  but the feelings of loneliness and despair takes over, filling him. Hide rolls over, pulling the sheets up over his head, as tears begin to fall from his eyes as his ribcage burns with pain from the force of his heart wrenching sobs, which die out into silent, agonizing intakes of air.

The nurse returns a few minutes later, and pours him another glass of water. Strangely, she pulls out the chair, and sits down. Hide presumes it’s the same nurse, but can’t bring himself to show his face. He pretends to be to be asleep, eyes screwed up as tightly as possible to prevent the tears squeezing their way out. He hears the nurse fumbling about in a bag or something similar, and frowns in confusion.

 _This isn’t_ _part of nurse train-_

“You know what?” Kaneki announces “I just realised that having you imprisoned in a hospital bed is probably the only way I’ll ever get you to hear good literature.”

Beneath the coarse hospital sheets, Hide smiles.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is excited to start some HideKane development? I am! 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	5. Into The Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Everyone!  
> Once again, thank you for your support!  
> It makes me so happy when you leave comments, kudos and bookmarks!!! :D  
> So, please, accept a big hug from me!!!
> 
> Before we begin, I'm sorry that once again the chapter is late.  
> (To make up for it, I've started writing another story - so if anyone is interested in reading a dystopian/sci-fi Hidekane, keep your eyes open!)  
> It's exam week at Uni right now so my Beta (I think they're called) is swamped with his MedLab exams.  
> (and me, being his loyal amazing barista is keeping him supplied with free coffee!)  
> So I thank you for understanding in advance.
> 
> Also, the fluffy scenes in this chapter were inspired by the amazing Nudelsuppe!  
> If you have the time, please check out their story "Inkstains and Flowers"  
> You won't regret it! 
> 
> If anyone is out of character, let me know.  
> Route A doesn't give me much to work with.  
> *Awkward laugh*

She runs as Anteiku burns.

Streams of blood are coursing over her body, and every time her feet strike the cobblestones beneath, a jarring pain snakes up her spine that throbs relentlessly in her brain. Touka is moving forwards by sheer force of will, her lungs rattling painfully against her ribcage. Her heart is throbbing like a wounded thing in her chest; the beat swells in her ears, quickening, deafening.

A haze sweeps over her, travelling through her veins like a slow seeping poison. It’s invisible to the naked eye, but she can feel the acid flowing through her blood and destroying her from within. The blood is beginning to clot against her ivory skin, a brown sticky mess across her arms that trickles down the muscles of her legs.

_RC Inhibitors. Not your average CCG thug._

She suspects she's being followed. Looking over her shoulder, as the world whips by around in a blur of colours, the paranoia starts to set in, but they wouldn’t have followed her this far, right?

It's confirmed as she hears the echoing of boots against stone, and she forcefully lets out a growl. The sound catches in her throat; she begins to cough up a sticky red substance that trickles like syrupy fluid across her tongue.

 _Fuck,_ _it's working fast._

Numbly, she moves a hand to her head and rakes blood-stained fingers through the indigo strands, pushing the sweat soaked hair behind her ears as she steels her expression. Something is embedded deep in the muscle of her wrist and blood drips from the wound, splattering over the bare skin of her thighs. The skin around the wound is an angry red, the veins distended and swollen .

She clenches her fist to keep from shaking. The numbness tingles up her arm and settles in the crook of her elbow. The pain keeps spreading through her veins and hits the arteries in the caverns of her heart in gleeful triumph. Her lips are turning numb and she has to stop herself from touching them just to know they are still there. 

Instead, she presses her lips to her wrist, licking away the blood and spitting it out on the road somewhere beside her. She clamps her teeth down hard on that small silver dart that’s jutting out of her skin.   The RC Inhibitor stinks of metal, acid and ammonia and it makes her eyes water and sinuses ache as her teeth come into contact.

It rips the skin apart as she forcefully tugs it out, blistering bubbles of pain explode across her tongue and numb her teeth. It rolls around the soft muscle of her cheeks before she spits it out. The dart hits the ground with a faint ringing sound that bounces around the crevices of stones, like coins falling from a child’s hand.

Pieces of cloth are strewn across the dirt paths like confetti the morning after a big party. The heavy smell of entrails fills the air like a dark clinging mist while blood drips from the walls as a gruesome substitute for paint. Here and there, she sees evidence on the ground of a struggle as if someone had played with their food before eating it, a cat toying with a mouse before its inevitable demise.

If Touka had pressed a little further down the passage, to the right and through a narrow entrance between two rocks; she would have noticed a pile of bodies. Brutally torn apart, they lay in a gruesome heap in the centre of the room.  Their throats had been brutally slashed and red blood slowly spreading across the dark rock beneath.

Her mind urges her on, down the twisting curves of Ward 20’s streets. Touka can feel the cells in her body scuttling down towards the place of injury to heal the skin, red strings of sinew attempt to stitch themselves together, but the poison in her veins is preventing them.

 _If I’m going to die, I’m going to_ _die fighting._

The hair of the back of her neck rises unexpectedly, and Touka barely has a moment to register a sense of deep unease before something strikes her hard in the back of the head, sending her sprawling into the dirt. She throws her hands out to break her fall and manages to avoid cracking her head open on the cobblestones. As stars of pain explode behind her eyes, she rolls over onto her back.

She's very aware of how cold she is, and how her breath is crystallising on the cold night air, staring up into the darkness of the sky. It takes her a minute to remember how to breathe as she takes in shallow gasps of air. The starlight reflects in her irises as the night encompasses her in an inky blanket.

The Ice Queen leans over Touka, a look of victory reflected in her glacial eyes. One hand pinning her prey down by the throat the other raised high, blade ready to strike. Death by decapitation. Not exactly the way that Touka had imagined dying in the endless scenarios she often came up within her head. She had been caught behind the bars of a cage and she knew she was never going to escape.

After all, no-ghoul lives 'happily-ever-after.' Not one.

*   *   *

Kaneki lies on his back on the cold concrete of the Hospital’s roof and stares at the muted sky. The sun is just beginning to rise, spreading golden tendrils of light through the clouds and spilling over snow drenched streets. He's been out here for nearly two hours, and he's sure that Hide will be waking soon.

 _In a few days_ , the doctor had said, _He needs time to recover_. Well, a few days had come and gone, agonisingly slowly, but they had gone. It was time.

Kaneki is looking for signs of movement. He’s searching for something out of the corner of his eye or even the crumbling of feet through the snow. He’s looking for the type of enemy that's invisible, the sort that lurks in the shadows and then springs as silent and deadly as a panther, claws of steel tearing into flesh and drawing rivers of blood.

He’s been on sentry duty ever since he returned to the hospital. From his perch he can see for miles around, no one enters or leaves the hospital without him watching. Still, the waiting is killing him.

_Hide, please…Wake up…_

After a few minutes, he jumps from the hospital roof and lands in a secluded corner before he enters the hospital through the front doors. Visiting hours have officially started. He nonchalantly pretends that he hasn’t been living on the roof for the past few days, as he nods a welcome to the nurse who walks by him in the hallway, in the middle of paging a doctor. Kaneki pauses outside of Hide’s door and takes a deep breath before he begins to open it - a fraction at first, then slightly more, before he swings it open properly, and steps lightly into the room. Hide is still immobile in his bed, breathing softly.

Sitting in the rickety wooden chair placed by Hide’s bedside, he pours himself a glass of water, before rummaging through the backpack that has been his home as of late. Kaneki smiles to himself when he pulls out his favourite novel, opening it to the first page, and enjoys the familiarity of inked paper as it fills his nose with the slightly musty smell that only a well-loved book can have.

“You know what?” Kaneki announces, more to himself than to his comatose friend on the bed, “I just realised that having you imprisoned in a hospital bed is probably the only way I’ll ever get you to hear good literature.”

That’s when he hears it. The sound of skin moving against coarse hospital sheets, and he watches, eyes widening, as Hide rolls around to face him, pooling the blankets around his neck like a child. The sunlight is reflecting in Hide’s hair, turning the blond an angelic golden hue. It sends rays lovingly over the tan of his skin, pooling into his eyes and turning them an impossible honey colour.

Hide is the embodiment of a warm hearth, one that radiates life and smells faintly of ground cinnamon.

"You're awake,"  Kaneki announces happily and leans on the edge of the hospital bed, eyes wide. The mattress folds underneath the pressure and Kaneki starts to prop himself up a little, he adds, "Hide."

Hide doesn't answer straight away. His eyes are rimmed with red almost as if he has been crying. He smiles wide and painful, "Yeah," he says, sliding towards Kaneki on the mattress so they’re face to face, “I’m awake."

Kaneki doesn't know what to say, but he doesn't want this to become an argument. He doesn't want to ruin their friendship or cause Hide any more pain. So he sits there, silent and still, feeling the press of the blond against his side.

"Hide, I'm sorry." He finally murmurs

Hide lets the smile fade but remains silent.

"You're my closest friend. I thought I was going to lose you.”

Hide laugh-sobs a little, pressing a bandaged palm to his eyes and he shakes his head, before he scoots away to the other side of the mattress and happily announces, "Well, news of my demise has been greatly exaggerated!" 

 “How long have you wanted to say that line for?" Kaneki jokes, relief rushing through his body like water released from the confines of a dam.

"Forever!" Hide responds, throwing his arms out dramatically. He then makes a beckoning gesture before patting the empty place beside him with an enthusiastic hand. “My future in the theatre beckons me!”

Kaneki settles into his designated area on the bed by Hide’s side, platinum hair falling across his forehead. In that one moment, he looks strangely vulnerable

"Come on Kaneki," Hide says,  regarding him with great disappointment, "Say something, you don't even look remotely pleased to see me!"

“I do wish you would shut up once in a while.” Kaneki laughs, before he twists his face into a plethora of vaguely uncomfortable expressions, “You just smell like several different people right now, you know? Because of the blood transfusions… It’s…weird.”

_Okay, that’s a bit creepy._

Kaneki’s eyes grow sad “I was an irresponsible friend. I’m so sorry.”

Hide looks down at his side and tenses the muscles of his stomach. He could feel the sharp sting and a dull ache from the healing wound, “Kaneki when I found out you were a ghoul… I decided that I was going to do everything possible to keep you happy. I knew what I was walking into the moment I stepped through the CCG doors. I knew the risks if I got caught. Sometimes things happen that can’t be undone. None of this your fault.”

He raises his gaze and looks Kaneki full in the face, "If it hadn't been for you, I would have died or worse.”

There's something about the whole genuine twist of Hide’s mouth that makes Kaneki soften slightly. It's a fantastic smile, flirtatious, reassuring and gratifying all at the same time.

"When you sacrifice everything to save a friend Kaneki that doesn't make you a monster, it makes you human."

Kaneki leans over, pressing his forehead against Hide's, his eyes closed, breathing slowly as Hide watches the rise and fall of his chest and treasuring the closeness between them.

Hide’s eyes wandered lazily over their interlaced fingers and their touching feet, their bodies perfectly parallel to each other. He felt as if they were one person, their atoms tightly bound together as that it was impossible to tell where he ended, and Kaneki began. Hide can feel the tickling hot rivulets of Kaneki's breath colliding with the soft skin of his temple and forehead.

Warm sunlight trickles through the window, the glass frosted a milky white from the icy wind swirling outside.  It spreads across the room and falls delicately across the molten marble of Kaneki’s skin, causing him to scrunch his thick lashes together tightly, and wriggle his nose in distaste.  His platinum hair is spread out on the crisp material of their shared pillow, and ruffling backwards and forwards in time with their intermingled breaths.

For some reason, their closeness strikes at Hide like a physical blow, along with that comes the agonizing sexual awareness. His eyes skim across the jaw line that's flexing with a slight smile,  as those grey eyes half-lidded for a moment in thought before they open wider. For a brief second, Hide finds himself wondering how often he looks like that, and who makes him look like that.

It is at that moment, when it really matters, that Hide loses his nerve.

Words unspoken die in his throat.

It’s then and there that the doctor interrupts their moment. It's quite a bizarre sensation when you simultaneously want to thank somebody and knock their lights out at the same time. Her feet are covered with thick cotton socks and buried snugly in small bunny slippers. With a stern expression, she holds a clipboard in her hands and eyes them both curiously. Hide feels three feet tall under her inquisitive stare, and she raises an eyebrow at their interlocked hands.

Hide’s brain fries like an egg in the sun as he blurts the first thing that pops into his head, “Hey doctor, I have a giant flesh-eating leech attached to my side. Do you think you could get rid of it?”

The half-ghoul looks vaguely scandalised at this declaration “What!?”

“You see, I’ve been trying to get rid of him since grade school, but he just won’t let go!” Hide continues, heedless to his friend’s shock, “He loves his books more than me!”

"Doctor?” Kaneki leaps back from the bed and bows respectfully “Is he suffering from neurological damage?" 

“You’re so mean to me!” Hide wails melodramatically.

"And don't you love it?" Kaneki shoots back.

Hide opens his mouth to respond but stopped, his tongue about to form words and his brain reprimanding him mid-flirt. The doctor gazed at the both of them, her expression both curious and relaxed.

“O-kay then.” She starts, flipping a crisp piece of paper over the top of the clipboard, “You’re all clear to go home. You’ll need to book a follow-up appointment in a week’s time to have those stitches removed. Also, keep your knee elevated at night so the swelling dissipates. A pillow or a rolled towel should work fine” She eyes the two of them with suspicion, “No strenuous behaviour, or you’ll ruin your stitches.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Hide states, a cheeky grin breaking over his face at the doctors not-so-subtle-inclination, “I’m retiring!”

The doctor sighs a bemused sigh and begins going over her paperwork, flipping one page over the other and scribbling furiously. “Oh, and the belongings you came in with are in the lockers downstairs. You can collect them before you leave.”

“Kaneki.” Hide states seriously, eyes glinting cheekily as he looks at his friend “As punishment for bullying me, you have to carry my stuff.”

Kaneki pushes himself off the bed and stares Hide down with his ‘I’m-so-done-with-your-antics-face’ as he shuffles across the room to the door; closing it slowly behind him. The doctor turns to Hide, her face twists into a cheeky grin, "You know, I doubt he'd reject you if you told him.” She muses thoughtfully

Hide grins in return before laughing heartily “Maybe, maybe not”. The frosted glass of the window plane begins to melts as the sun’s ray’s beam against it with a loving caress. “When he gets back, I’m gonna make him piggyback me all the way home.” He announces with a chuckle.

*   *   *

The wind flows contentedly through the leaves, rustling dryly against each other. They walk together comfortably, every now and again Kaneki finds himself smiling as if an enormous weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Hide’s heels tap lightly against the muscles of his thighs as tiny, iridescent snowflakes fall from clear skies.

The old lady in the elevator that they catch to Hide’s apartment is side-eyeing Kaneki with barely concealed disgust. Her bespectacled eyes roll over his black fingernails and platinum blonde hair with a curled mouth as she shakes her head at his audacity. Kaneki is doing his best I'm-not-paying-attention-to-you face, trying not to flinch under the scrutiny. Hide, helpful as always, is stifling laughter by practically shoving a fist into his mouth.

_An old lady is staring down an SS-rated ghoul and winning._

_Oh god, I wish I had a camera._

The awful elevator music is chiming through the small enclosed space. Hide wiggles his legs in time with the beat from his position on Kaneki’s back.  In the reflection of the polished metal, Hide can see that Kaneki is steadily becoming more annoyed, so he ruffles the silvery locks of his hair with a cheeky grin.

_You love meeeee!_

The old lady cautiously steps away, practically pressing herself into the cold metal wall, releasing sighs in ten-second intervals as she shakes her head.

Hide begins to guffaw out loud, and Kaneki drops him to the floor in retaliation. As if with sudden realisation and guilt, he immediately bends down to check on Hide’s wellbeing. His immediate concern coupled with the ridiculousness of their situation causes Hide to lose what little self-control he had. He breaks out in huge, bellowing laughs, tears beginning to form at the corners of his eyes as he clutches his sides in a mixture of pain and mirth.

The elevator dings, signalling that it has arrived at a floor, and the old lady leaves, throwing a disdainful look over her shoulders and muttering “Youths.”

By the time Hide has finished blinking all of the tears from his eyes, a shadow falls across his face. He looks up to see Kaneki looking down at him, a slightly rueful expression on his face before he attempts to smother him.

"I can’t take you anywhere” Kaneki mutters, somewhat abruptly pulling Hide to his feet.

Hide would have attempted to start bickering with Kaneki, but it was as about as productive as trying to hold a conversation with a brick wall. Kaneki wouldn’t give an inch and then would proceed to slaughter his opponent with sarcastic, intelligent barbs that would leave anyone standing there from shock with the faint feeling of being hit by a truck.

The elevator dinged once more, the steel doors hissed open to reveal the white-washed walls of Hide’s floor. Kaneki led the way down the corridor while Hide followed slowly behind. They walked in silence for a time, each absorbed in his own thoughts. They reached Hide’s apartment and Kaneki fumbled with the key in the lock, trying to get the damned thing to turn.

The door eventually swung open and they headed inside, Kaneki mumbled something about coffee and disappeared into the kitchen while Hide collapsed, face-first, on the couch to flick the TV on. The stern face of a newsreader filled the screen, murmuring a few stories about missing persons and to contact the CCG of any suspected ghoul activity.

“Hide” Kaneki called from the kitchen, “You’ve managed to let your coffee beans sour. I’m going to do downstairs and get some more.”

“Ok! I’ll be right up!” Hide responds, his voice slightly muffled from the couch cushion.

Kaneki appears at his side with a glass of water and painkillers in hand “No you won’t” He said firmly, “you’ll stay right here and take these.” He forces the glass and pills into Hide’s hand and vanishes out the door, his footsteps retreating down the hallway.

Hide found himself scowling as he lifted the glass of water to his lips and let the liquid slip down the hot rough insides of his throat.  He wandered aimlessly for a while about the kitchen, not hungry, feet curling against the under-floor heating beneath the tiles, looking for something to do while he waited for Kaneki to return with coffee.

He caught himself peering at his reflection in the shiny surface of the fridge, and he runs his fingers through his hair. He pulls the wispy strands from his forehead to see whether or not he looked better with his hair away from his face. That was when he realised he should probably be doing something productive.

He sighs and busies himself preparing some instant noodles, wondering if food will fill the pit in his stomach. He's halfway through his first bowl when he realizes he doesn't have much of an appetite even though he hasn't eaten in the past few days. He sets the bowl in the sink with a loud clink of ceramic on metal.

When he opens the fridge to check the contents for an apple, a slight predicament surfaces in the form of a large green fungus growing at the back of the vegetable draw. There’s an utterly revolting smell coming from an open carton of milk, and what looks like to be a month old defrosted chicken with almost visible fumes filling the fridge. With great haste, Hide throws everything that seems forming into its own ecosystem into the bin. He idly wonders how on earth his standard of living dropped this low. Hide contemplates whether or not spoiled milk and rotten vegetables could mutate into carnivorous man-eating plants, he takes the rubbish bin outside. Just to be safe.

_You can never be too careful._

He had raised his hand to knead at his forehead and then had realized that his skin and clothes had smelt vaguely of bleach and antiseptic, and he could taste it on the back of his tongue. His stomach gives an uncomfortable twist.

_Time for a shower!_

He slips his shirt up and over his head, removing the soft fabric into a pile on the floor and allowing the cold air to assail his skin. He draws in a short hiss of air as he sees the bandages across the majority of his torso.

He blanches as he wonders how many plastic bags he needs to tie around his body to make sure his bandages don’t get wet.

_Maybe I should get Kaneki to give me a sponge bath._

He shuts the door to the bathroom more forcefully than he had intended but leaves it purposefully unlocked. As he slips under the stream of scalding liquid, he wonders if Kaneki will be back when he emerges. Water runs off of him off in little rivulets as he manoeuvres around, trying not to get his bandages wet. It takes nearly a full bar of soap before he feels like he's finally scrubbed the hospital stench away, and he's light-headed as he steps out of the shower.

*   *   *

Kaneki has been sitting on the floor of Hide’s room for what he guesses is about twenty minutes now. Next to him, two takeaway coffees sends spirals of steam into the still atmosphere. It's not like he's routed to the spot or anything, he just… He’s just trying to compose himself at the possible onslaught of Hide’s questions, as his eyes wandered over the wall, tracing in the details until the image is burned into his mind.

Through the walls, Kaneki can hear Hide’s singing voice reverberate around the tiles, as he tries to hit a dramatic crescendo of some song. His voice breaks a few times, reminiscent of that awkward period through middle school when puberty kicked in before he warbles on.

_You are ridiculous._

Kaneki lets a wry smile break across the stoniness of his face, and he allows himself to slump further to the floor, spine stretched out over the roughness of the carpet. He idly watches the ceiling fan spin around and around, thrumming lightly.

He wouldn't have given himself a second chance if he were in Hide's position.

“You probably shouldn’t fall asleep there.” Hide’s voice jolts him back to reality “I mean, I’ve done it a few times before, but man, the neck kinks aren’t worth it. I felt like an old man for three days.”

Kaneki doesn't know why, but he's feeling slightly hot as he watches Hide enter the room from his position on the floor. He’s dressed in a loose pair of Kamii University printed track pants, with a blanket wrapped around his body to defend himself from the cold air, the bandages around his body slightly peeking through the material. He is thinner than Kaneki remembers; he slowly lowers himself to the floor, stretching his limbs out languidly like a cat with an appreciative groan.

“Want to share the blanket?” Hide offers face strangely solemn as he reads the underlying situation at hand. Hide felt a flicker of tension spark across the room while Kaneki shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.

Hide had to resist the urge to demand an explanation, to require an answer to all the gaping questions that he has circling around his brain. He doesn’t though, he knows that Kaneki can only give so much before he retreats into himself.

Kaneki’s face was very pale as he licked his lips and then slowly asked, “Why did you go this far?”

Hide gave him a long look, and once more beckoned Kaneki to join him under the blanket, before he forcibly throws part of it on his best friend, "I missed you. Isn’t that reason enough?"

Kaneki didn't speak for a moment; he had his eyes closed, breathing slowly, leaning into the pressure that Hide was creating on his neck. Kaneki seemed to be holding onto the wings of a miracle in his hands and clutching on for dear life, begging not to let go.

Hide continues rubbing small circles across his back as he says “So you found my wall of mysteries, huh? What’d you think? You didn’t even get to the best part yet!”

For a brief second as Kaneki looks up, he finds himself thinking how beautiful Hide looks when the sunlight stipples in through the curtains. When Hide smiles, the bridge of his nose crinkles slightly, the freckles scattered across the caramel of his skin like brown sugar become more prominent. Once, when they were younger, Kaneki had tried to count them all but never succeeded.

“Come on! I’ll show you the coolest part!”

Kaneki muses idly that one of the best things about being with Hide like this is that he's completely comfortable around him. With Hide around there’s never the feeling that the world might collapse in on itself tomorrow; no pretending like he has to put on a mask. With Hide, he never has the feeling that he's alone.

Kaneki smiles inwardly as Hide springs from the floor with the grace of a newborn fawn, all limbs and no practiced gait. He dumps all of the blanket heavily onto Kaneki’s face with a cheeky grin and a snort before sauntering over to the aforementioned wall of mysteries.

Hide picks at the corner of a poster with his fingernails, the rhythmic sound fills the room with its beat, as Hide seemingly begins to wrestle with the stubborn sign. It rips off the wall with a tearing sound, and Hide takes a few steps back, hands on hips, practically radiating waves of smugness.  On the wall, drawn in intricate detail with graphite was a building, in some places it was smudged, possibly by being constantly rubbed out and corrected.

“I present to you the schematics of the CCG headquarters!” Hide announces, “I spent enough running around the place I figured I might as well map it out incase I needed to bust you out. What do you think?”

The question hangs. Hide turns back to wall and hums, presumably at his own genius and leans in before correcting what looks like a corridor on the ground floor.

"Hide."

"Yeah?"

Kaneki watches the smooth line of his backside as Hide draws on the wall with a graphite pencil with a clumsy hand. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know, Kaneki. I know."

They fall silent, both of them at a loss for words. After everything, after all, the thoughts and rehearsed conversations, nothing seemed to fit quite right. The TV in the next room tried, in vain, to fill the silence, but Hide couldn’t make out much of what they were saying.

Kaneki, on the other hand, could hear every word. All colour left his face as the droning voice of the news anchor proclaimed:

**“The CCG has released no further information on the Ghoul codenamed: Rabbit. It is rumoured that she finally been apprehended by First Class Investigator Akira Mado at the raid of the 20 th ward earlier this week. On our next segment, information about the impending curfews and what they mean for you!”**

In a moment, Kaneki is up and moving. Before Hide can get more than a word out, he is out the door and striding towards the lift. Hide scrambles to his feet, his side twinging a rebuke, and he just manages to make it into the living room to see Touka’s mask with the words “Captured!” scrawled underneath.

Swearing under his breath, he hurries out the door.

*    *    *

There wasn't much room for coherent thought inside of Kaneki's head at that exact moment. It was swallowed up by the tumble of panic that was swirling around his skull. Kaneki licks his dry lips; his legs tensed and ready to spring, his mind reeling with calculations and endless possibilities. He’d felt in his gut that something was wrong, that dark feeling that was  _never wrong_.

Kaneki was angry, he was  _hurt_ , and he'd probably jumped to at least a thousand conclusions within the last thirty seconds, as he bolts down the stairwell at blinding speed, adrenaline raging through his veins.

Touka could be dead for all Kaneki knew, could be lying somewhere  _dead_  and it would all be his fault. Morbid haunting images are swimming in his mind of Touka lying on a metal table as doctors cut her open. Images of masked surgeons pulling out her organs and placing them proudly on display. Of Touka screaming and writhing as she was brutally tortured, crying out for someone to save her.

He reached the bottom of the stairs just as the elevator opened and Hide stepped out, eyes searching for him. Unable to bring himself to stop, Kaneki turns and hurries out into the snow.

Hide, meanwhile, was filled with a sense of irrational panic. A feeling that told him if he let Kaneki out of his range of vision he'd never see him again. He smashes his side into the frame of the elevator’s door, grunting at the pain and watching through foggy eyes as Kaneki moves across the snow with the gait of a predator.

The ice bites into Hide’s bare feet as he run across the frozen asphalt, feet slapping in his haste, his soles a startling red, flushed with blood. The snow sits heavily on his exposed skin, leaning forwards he scoops some ice into his hands and compacts the frozen shards into a tight ball.

“Kaneki!”

The frustration escalates like steam inside a glass tumbler, hot white searing clouds that cling to everything they touch. He takes aim with the icy projectile, building up momentum in the muscle of his body.

**“KEN!”**

Kaneki who drives him mad, who makes him want to scream, who makes him want to cry, whom he wants to lie down next to and fall asleep with for the rest of his life because no other place on earth is so secure.

He throws the snowball as hard as he can. It sails through the air as if it rested upon the wings of a bird and smacks heavily into the back of Kaneki’s skull with a resounding thunk. It’s not what makes Kaneki stop though, no, it was the high-pitched yelp that follows after as Hide fell to his knees clutching his wound with frustrated tears brimming in his eyes.

“Hide, you need to be careful!” Kaneki snarls as he jogs back to his friend, more panicky that he thought he would be. His hands shake and heart pounds like it will skip out of his throat. He removes his jacket and hands it to Hide, “You’ll freeze out here!”

His Kaneki is looking at him with a mixture of self-loathing and bitter resentment. The hand clamps down unmercifully tight on his wrist, holding it there. Hide looks down at his hands again, and Kaneki can make out the lines around his mouth, grim and determined like he's backed into a corner and running out of options.

“Why must I be hurt for you to stop? I don’t want your jacket!” Hide’s voice drips with venom, smacking the offending item away, “ ** _I want you to listen to me!_** ”

" **This has nothing to do with you Hide!"**  There seems to be an edge of desperation to Kaneki's voice as he yells, eyes glittering and intense. His hand grips tighter and he looks directly into his friend's eyes.

" **It does! It has everything to do with me! You’re my friend!"** More anger, mouth curved down, stubbornness and rigidity built and welded into every line, **“Touka is my friend too!”**

"You’ll be a liability. Just stay home!"

The world lurches as Hide surges up and Kaneki pins him down easily. For a fleeting instant, Kaneki has the urge to trace the curve of Hides cheekbones with his fingertips.

_Let me keep you safe._

"Why do you think you need exist in isolation?” Hide demands “Why don't you understand that it affects me?! Why don’t you understand that when you left you  ** _ripped_**  me apart! I didn't want to be alone- I… didn't want to be… I'm… it's… it hurts, it still  ** _hurts_**."  Hide’s voice cracks, as pain, both physical and emotional, lend weight and stress to each syllable.

"It hurts  ** _so much_** , and you just keep pushing  ** _and pushing_**!" he was yelling now, palms a raw and throbbing pressure on Kaneki’s shoulders, “and I’m so damn tired of running around in circles trying to make you understand that you don’t need to fight alone. So for once, since this whole damn thing started, **_you’re going to listen to me_**!”

His heart races and he blinks again, forcing himself to think outside the walls, wrenching thoughts away from the potential storm. Kaneki’s eyes fix on where Hide's fingers lace and fasten against his own. Their heartbeats mingle with pulsating adrenaline.

“Use that big brain of yours, I know you have one in that thick skull!” Hide continues, startling birds in a nearby tree causing them to take flight, squawking in protest, “Why would the CCG publically announce they have been holding Rabbit hostage? If she’s such a dangerous, wanted-dead-or-deader ghoul, why not just kill her, huh!?”

Hide hisses through the whites of his teeth, “Don’t you see, stupid Kaneki? They didn’t catch everyone at the Anteiku raid. Rabbit’s bound to have allies right? They’re baiting you  and nearly succeeded too.”

Hide sucks in air through his teeth and gently pushes Kaneki away, rising to a seated position beside him, “Who would run to her aid, Kaneki? They figured the Eyepatch would. Who else though? Think hard, Kaneki.”

Kaneki’s eyes widen as his blood in his veins turns to ice. “Hinami.” He gasps.

“Good.” Hide soothes, squeezing his hand, “Where would Hinami be?”

Kaneki painfully rakes his nails through his hair, bruising the soft skin underneath with the pads of his fingers. His shakes his head “She’s usually with Touka.” He moans, his voice nearly a whine.

“Is there anyone else? Anyone else that Manager would have deemed strong enough to protect her?”

Kaneki stops, eyes widening, and says with finality “Yomo.”

Hide smiles, sadly, “First, we find Yomo, okay? Then we make our plans from there.”

Kaneki blinks, he'd be a fool to underestimate Hide's powers of scrutiny, but that doesn't mean he has to like them.

*   *   *

Yomo was the type of person, Hide had guessed, that if he had a hunch about something and you weren't telling him what it was, who’d simply hold your head underwater until the lack of air in your brain convinced you that staying silent wasn’t the best idea. Then, once he was satisfied, you’d be allowed to slink off into the corner to sulk like a wounded animal.

 _It’s not like I’ve spent time with the_ _man though. I could be wrong. Maybe._

The door to his apartment is simple and modern looking with stained wooden panels and slates of frosted glass, finished off with a stainless steel door handle. The door shudders on its hinges as footsteps thunder towards it before it bursts open. It crashes ear-splittingly into the opposite wall, leaves a gaping indent in the paintwork where the handle connects with the plaster.

Kaneki is kneeling down, arms outstretched and, before Hide can even comprehend what’s going on, a blur shaped like a young teenage girl slams bodily into Kaneki. Hinami has tears rolling down her face as she desperately clings to Kaneki like he is all she has left in the world. Tiny hiccup like sobs wrack her body, as she clings tighter, arms forming a vice-like grip around the half-ghoul’s neck as she breathes in his familiar scent.

Kaneki cradles her carefully in his arms, and she bites the black fabric over his shirt to keep herself from wailing aloud. She clings to him, pressing herself into his chest, one palm trembling against the back of his neck. He wants to promise her that the pain will be over soon, he wants to promise that everything will be alright now, but the words ring hollow even in his own head.

Hinami falls quiet and leans back a little. For a second; Kaneki can see in her eyes how truly important he is to her. His smile fades to a more genuine one, and without thinking he pulls her into his arms. He's crushing her against his chest, but she doesn't try to pull away. A choked sob, carefully disguised as a cough, wrenches itself from him. Kaneki grasps Hinami’s face gently in the palms of his hands and leans his forehead against hers.

“Hinami, are you safe?” Kaneki whispers softly, wiping away the glistening tears that fall like stars from Hinami’s eyes with the ends of his thumbs, “You’re not hurt are you?”

Hinami shakes her head vigorously, pulling her bottom lip with one nervous hand. She crunches her eyes to stop the tears from escaping, but they seep out the sides, “I’m okay, big brother.”

The tears begin to flow again as her little face reddens and twists in pain from keeping the emotions in for so long, “They have big sister!” She cries “They’re taking my family away again!”

Kaneki takes a few moments to catch his breath. His chest stops heaving and is just about recovered when she looks at him with a familiar, expectant expression. This time, her eyes are not eager or joyful, but empty and dulled by grief.

“Hinami,” He starts “I swear to you I’ll get Touka back. I promise.”

She studies him for a moment, reaching up to wipe the tears from his cheeks that he didn't know he was leaking.

“And what _is_ your plan, Ken?” enquires a deep, resonating voice.

The sudden bluntness of the words startles the three of them. Kaneki rises to his feet and Hinami turns around, one of Kaneki’s arms draped across her front.

Yomo looks at them with dark, impenetrable eyes. His familiar moody, seamless expression like molten marble as he stands in the doorway of his apartment, casting disapproving eyes over the indent in the plaster. He jerks his head in the direction of the apartment, ordering them inside and away from prying neighbours.

“Inside now,” Yomo orders, he pauses at the door and looks over Hide with mild curiosity in his eyes, “The human can come too.”

 _The human has a name,_ Hide opens his mouth to retort, but figures that sassing the scary man who could eat him for breakfast isn’t a good idea. As they shuffle past him, Yomo stares impassively out into the twilight, his ever-watchful eyes scanning the streets and gardens.

Hinami finally notices Hide and regards him with a keen mixture of curiosity and hesitation. She opens her mouth as if to ask something but shuts it again, her courage failing her. When Hide grins and winks at her, she flushes a deep red and hides herself behind Kaneki, bashful and anxious as she always is around new people.

Hide sits on the black, leather couch, yet another cup of coffee in his hands. He looks around the apartment and wonders if Yomo could possibly be any more boring. Everything here is either black or white, from the appliances to the furniture, to the artworks on the wall. Every other room is closed off from them, but Hide can guess the colour scheme there too. Far from being a place of safety, the apartment leaves him feeling ill at ease.

Kaneki is sitting next to Hide on the couch, but he hasn’t spoken since his brief exchange with Hinami on the porch. He brewed a pot of coffee at Yomo’s instruction before sinking into the couch beside his friend. 

Yomo had turned out the light in the corridor and the shadows crept from the hallways into the artificial lamplight of Yomo's sitting room, caressing the corners of the sofa and chairs. Hinami sits between Kaneki’s knees, on a black and white carpet that covers the tiled floor, reading silently. 

“In Aoigiri,” Yomo breaks the silence from a chair opposite them, his voice low and commanding. “Did you find what you were seeking?”

Kaneki sucks in a deep intake of air, on edge all at once again, “No.”

It began quietly, the large things always do.

Yomo regarded him silently for a moment before speaking in his calm and measured tone "I hear rumours that The Devil Ape and The Black Dog made it out of the raid, barely. The rumours say that they were saved by an eye-patched ghoul."

“The rumours are right,” Kaneki replies evenly.

“Tell me, eye-patched ghoul, where now does your allegiance lie?” Yomo’s cold stare penetrates into the very depths of Kaneki’s soul, picking him apart piece by piece.

“Which path have you decided to walk?” His eyes study Kaneki’s face.

“My own,” Kaneki states, fighting to keep the tremor out of his voice.

"I got an anonymous report early this morning. It says that Touka is being held in an induced coma. She’s been sentenced for execution, and her kagune will be harvested.” Yomo said solemnly, as he carefully refilled his coffee cup.

The statement, spoken blandly and almost without feel, took a moment to register in Kaneki's brain. He stared at Yomo expectantly for a time, waiting for him to continue, waiting for the plan he had undoubtedly concocted. His silence drilled the statement into fact and layers of realisation, dread, panic and absolute outrage overwhelmed him.

Kaneki rose swiftly from the couch, stepping over Hinami and staring Yomo square in the face _"_ _How can you just_ _say it like that?_

Yomo observed him silently for a moment, clearly undaunted by the fizzling anger radiating from the half-ghoul. “Because that is the truth.” He finally said, “It is Touka’s own actions that have brought her down this path, and now she has met its end.” He spread his hands “So, what do you plan to do Kaneki Ken?”

“If I give myself up in exchange for Touka…” Kaneki starts, but the glares he receives from all three of them is enough to melt the flesh from his bones. 

“We're not going down that route,” Yomo states firmly “The CGG isn’t someone you make deals with.”

He lowers his gaze to Hinami, still reading silently. “Hinami-chan, can you please bring the coffee pot over? I think we’ll be up for a while.”  

The girl nods and jumps to her task with a childish vigour. She soon returns ceramic pot in hand, before placing it on the table with a clack.

“I’ll bust her out,” Hide announces suddenly, drawing everyone’s gaze to him, “I’m a paperboy in the CCG. I know that building like the back of my hand!” He raises a hand to forestall Kaneki’s protest “Plus, it’s always good to have an inside man. All you ghouls need to do is cause a distraction, something large enough to draw their attention away, then I find Touka and get her out!”

“And if you’re stopped?” Yomo enquires sternly “If someone, a fellow human, stands between you, Touka and escape? What then?”

“This is isn't my regular line of work.” Hide clarifies, already beginning to regret speaking up “so I'm kind of making it up as I go.” 

“You better hope you're as smart as you think you are,” Yomo replies grimly. “What’s the rest of your plan?” 

Hide suddenly felt like someone had turned a spotlight on him in front a multitude of people he didn't know, and he’d somehow misplaced all of his clothes.

“I can help!” Hinami chimes in abruptly. “I’ve been working on sensing people, I knew you were here before Mr. Yomo did!”

Kaneki smiles at her, waiting for Yomo to refute her abilities and tell her off for speaking out of turn. After a heavy silence, Kaneki whispers softly “Hinami, I think it would be better if you stayed here to look after the house, Touka will need you when she gets here.”

“But I can help!” She responds in a hurt tone. “I knew you were coming, I can sense the bad guys before they get you!”

Kaneki lifts his gaze to Yomo pleadingly. Yomo, in turn, is regarding Hinami with a strange expression on his face.

“No.” Kaneki starts, “Surely you don-“

“Why not?" Yomo snapped back “She did sense you both, well before you made it here. She can help, she wants to help, why not?”

In desperation, Kaneki looks to Hide for support. Hide takes the hint and opens his mouth before a withering glare from Yomo shuts him up.

“You want to rescue Touka, you’ll need Hinami’s help. It’s as simple as that.” The man’s tone brooks no argument. Hinami looks triumphant and proud of herself and wraps her arms around Yomo’s neck, giving him a hug to rival the one she gave Kaneki at the door. Kaneki fights down a strange feeling of jealousy and nods slowly.

“Now then. Ken put Hinami to bed. We have plans to set.” Yomo nodded firmly.

*    *    *

A few hours and many cups of coffee later, the plan was ready. The three of them looked between themselves, each running the place through their heads, each trying to find weak points and counter them with their own little failsafe.

“So…” Hide said finally “I think that’s everything. Anyone care to sum up, the plan?”

"Get in, get Touka and get out," Yomo replied grimly. "Nothing else, we don't have  _time_  for anything else."

Hide stole a glance at Kaneki, his friend's face was apprehensive and slightly drawn. He looked pensive as if fighting some internal struggle within his head.

"There is nothing else you can do," he murmured barely above a whisper. "For now, just trust me, okay? I won’t let you down. Besides, Hinami will be sensing my every move. I’ll be okay."

Kaneki’s slate grey eyes slid to his, his shoulders were slightly slumped as if in gentle defeat, “I don’t want to put you in danger," he said quietly, and then smirks wryly to himself. “You’re too stubborn sometimes."

At Hide’s laugh, Kaneki straightened his back, eyes shining fiercely in the sunlight. "Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :D
> 
> Psst. I'm developing (trying! I'm so awkward with social media) a Tumblr because I really want to be more active in this amazing fandom.  
>  Currently it's 'nironwrites' because I'm really creative :p


	6. The Fools Court

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Everyone!!! :D
> 
> Sorry that is has taken me so long to update!!!!  
> Please forgive me? :3
> 
> Before we get this chapter underway, I would like to make a few special mentions;
> 
> To Kaylee, also know as the lovely Space-Dementia49;  
> You have been a constant pillar of support and love for me, and if it wasn't for your enthusiasm.  
> I don't think I would have found the will power to continue writing.  
> I love you and Thank You for being my biggest fan! :D
> 
> To Karin, also known as FalseHero;  
> You gave me some important advice when I really needed it, and I thank you so much for your support.  
> *hugs* Thank you for becoming my friend.
> 
> To Izzy, also known as Blackberrymilkshake,  
> You are a blessing in my life, and I thank the universe that I had the chance to meet you.  
> You have given me so many ideas for this story, due to your wonderful headcanons you share, your wonderful personality  
> and my biggest muse... your art.  
> I love you la mia bella luna :)

He eyes the newspaper clipping with disdain, the ink smudging into the skin of his hands. He clenches his fists as overpowering rage consumes him.

_So, my shitty sister got herself into trouble again, did she?_

Ayato watches his esteemed leader as she moves restlessly around the metallic room. Her bandaged feet trail quietly on the cold metal floor, eyes running from the ceiling to the floor. She mutters softly to herself as concealed figures move in the gloom behind her.

"Not yet," she murmurs to herself, feminine features twist into a sinister smirk beneath their coverings. "We don't want to give the game away too quickly do we? That wouldn't be _any_   _fun_."

In the centre of the room, three figures kneel on the floor. Their torn clothing, little more than rags, is bloodstained and filthy. Thick, mouldy potato sacks cover their heads, the material bound with thick ropes at the neck. Grotesque faces are scrawled on the material with permanent markers as if done by children. Chains, thick and rusted, bind their wrists to their ankles; the skin rubbed red and raw as it forces their spines to bend in a sickening semi-circle.

From his position behind the door, he could barely hear her mutterings. Ayato was secretly glad that she was too preoccupied with whatever it was she was planning to notice that he was slowly making an attempt to leave.

It was slow progress. After all, there were eyes always watching, hidden in shadows that scamper from corner to corner, recording all in their travels.

"Whom shall we choose first?" she asked the room, looking around at the line of heads craning at her from the floor to the ceiling. She moves soundlessly towards and along the wall, trailing her hands lovingly over metal tubes. Bolted to the walls of the room are strange cylindrical objects, long and broad enough to house the body of a fully grown adult. In the tubes, blank faces lay dormant in the murky water, eyes taped shut as they float lifelessly.

"Do we choose speed?" She chimes, running her hands over the cold steel surface of the cylinder, tracing bandaged fingers over the person’s features, feathering over lips and eyelashes.

"Do we choose strength?" At a second bottle, she pauses, pressing her face against the glass as one would do at the zoo to observe an exotic creature. She giggles, a sound that so musical and light it would be hard to believe it can from something so twisted.

For a moment, she hesitates at the third. Almost fondly, she traces the wrinkled face of a kind old man, paralysed in some sort of stasis. The moment disappears in a flash, and she clenches a fist at her side before saying "Or, shall we choose my favourite?"

Ayato decides that he does not care for her little exhibition; she was probably only doing it to frighten her prisoners, flexing her muscles, to scare them into bending to her will.

She giggles once more, throwing her head back to reveal the smooth column of her neck in the eeriness of the artificial light, “Tatara, bring me the little one. I have a feeling our good doctor wants to play.”

Ayato remains still as a kneeling figure in the middle of the room is grabbed by the cusp of their neck, strong fingers linking underneath the ropes that bind them before they are dragged across the room. An elbow snaps inwards, causing the figure to scream and wail as they disappear behind the closed door. Their voice echoes and reverbates until, with a sickening crunch, it stops.

“It’s time to create a new owl, since our last one…flopped.”

Dimly it occurred to Ayato that if she noticed him she would probably kill him or worse. It's then he decides to leave while the organisation is thrumming with excitement like bees in a hive, feet stomping against metal as voices laugh and rise in a haunting symphony. After all, he has more important things to attend to than a squirming, pathetic flesh bag.

On the circular hewn walls around the gaping void, there was evidence of rusting machinery where the lift had once run.  The balcony he was hanging from was unstable; he could feel it shaking slightly beneath his splayed fingers.

If the stupid thing gave way he was going to fall, and if he fell, he wasn't sure he could get away stealthily enough. He steadied his heartbeat, tensed his arm muscles and flung himself onto the next decent railing, metal creaking slightly underfoot.

Using the sinewy muscle in his leg, he tenses and begins to haul himself upwards, adrenaline rushing in his ears and flowing through his veins like a narcotic. He heard the yelling fading into a faint buzz, but he was only conscious of himself. He used his arms and feet to propel himself across buildings, jumping from at least six feet of utter unimaginable blackness.

He landed after what seemed an endless age with his arms outstretched on the hard concrete of the next building. He rolls, twisting forward over his shoulder to land on his feet, and he takes off running into the night.

Sweeping clean across sickening drops, he flies, unrestrained and free. He falls smoothly, a testament to the many hours he has practised the art of parkour, and he crouches at the edge of the ledge of the rooftop. He presses his spine into the cold brick, and from the inside pocket of his leather jacket he procures a mask. He fastens it to his face with quick, practised movements, breathing in the smell of familiarity.  
  
A Black Rabbit Mask.

A pigeon cooed harmlessly beside him, and he gives the bird his best  _don't-fuck-with-me-you-son-of-a-bitch_  look. He notices an odd, acrid smell lingering about on the rooftop. He frowned, decided it was nothing and pressed on.

When his target is in his sight, he leaps, kagune unfurling from his shoulders like the wings of an avenging angel.  He lands on the metal of a large metal rubbish bin, sending a clap of thunder rolling around the alleyway as the lid caves underfoot.

He leaps at the shocked investigator, slamming him into the smooth wall of the alley and pinning him with a kagune covered arm around the neck.  The man whined as his throat constricts, a pitiful, desperate sound as he tried to claw his way away from the ghoul who pinned him.  Tears of frustration and pain well up in the human’s eyes.   _The investigator laughs bitterly, but whether in defeat or defiance even he doesn't know._

Ayato smirked at his fruitless attempt, after all, what are human nails against skin stronger than steel?

“Tell me, you pathetic lump of flesh, where is The Rabbit being held?”

 

*   *   *

Hide’s eyes shut tight

_It’s all in your head._

Someone is laughing at him, just above him, standing over his body. He raises his head and clenches his jaw, exposing his throat to the predator. It is a predator because it stalks all the way around him, assessing him from every angle.The Smiling Masked ghoul breathes down his neck, causing the hair to rise at the sensation.

_Is it all in your head?_

_It feels too real._

A low, guttural laugh echoes around the pale bathroom tiles, and Hide flinches from the inner concussion. He presses his back into the wall and slides down the cold surface, gripping the golden strands of his hands tightly until he can feel the indents of his nails on his skull.

_Think logically, an SS rated ghoul would not be in your bathroom._

Hide hugs himself, rocking back and forth as images play through his head.

A touch, a smell, loud noises and garish crimson, hair of platinum haunts him, close enough to touch, but lying dead, very dead and distorted in a field of snow. A heartbeat, tiny, faint, almost non-existent, valves opening and closing with a monotonous rhythm that quickens very slightly.

_I failed Kaneki…_

The corpse of Kaneki shatters into a thousand pieces under his fingertips, shredding the skin on his hands as the crystalline glass reforms into Seidou’s broken body. His jaw hangs loosely, his eyes wide and staring as blood runs freely from his armless side, dripping on to the tiles. Seidou’s eyes lock onto his, and he frantically tries to form the word help, instead what sound comes from his throat is otherworldly, distorted.

Hide nearly cries out as Seidou’s warm brown eyes impossibly widen, his pupils narrowing into slits as the irises shift to a harsh yellow, the eyelids burning off as a garbled screeching fills the air.

_I’m sorry Seidou; I’m sorry…sorry…_

He forcefully smacks the back of his skull into the tiled wall behind him, and the warbling stops. Hide grows solemn, he scrunches his face determinedly and takes an enormous gulp of air, forcing his ribs to retract and stretch, as his lungs fill rapidly.

Hide begins to stand, his legs trembling underneath him, as the fading sunlight breached through the window. He stretched, fingers curling as he reached for the crimson sky, his feet digging in the floor as his spine uncurled.

It was a misty sort of afternoon, the snow falling lightly to the ground like crushed sugar. The sun is disappearing behind a grey sheen of clouds, taking the warm trickling light away.

He splashes his face with icy water.

Hide is looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, taking in the dark bruises marring the skin of his face. There’s a ring of violent ornate bruises around his neck, shaped like the indents of clawed fingers that’s begging to turn into a sickly green around the edges. His eyes are little sunken in from lack of sleep, forming dark circles around his eyes that seem to age him.

Tiny droplets of water fall from his hair and splatter onto his bare shoulders like tiny shards of ice. They roll down the crevice of his spine and pool at his lower back, soaking into the rough material of his pants.

He glances down at his trembling hands, curling and uncurling fists before splashing his face with cold water again. Hide runs his hands through his hair quickly, moving the wet strands back and forth in a half-hearted attempt to dry them.

He sighs loudly and pulls a strange face at himself in the mirror.

His hair is certainly as untameable as it has ever been, growing in every direction all at once. It's longer now; framing his face with a sort of choppy cut that falls into his eyes.

_I should get Kaneki to cut it._

He blows away an irritating strand; the muscles of his jaw are aching from clenching his teeth for so long. All he wants to do is curl up in bed, and pretend this is a really,  **really**  crappy dream. The sort he'll wake up from shivering, and lie there for a moment thinking "shit." Before getting up to devour yesterday's cold pizza for breakfast.

_When did life become so complicated?_

He uncaps some prescriptions pills from his recent hospital trip and pops two in his mouth, rolling the chemical concoction around his mouth before swallowing.    

 _Maybe it became complicated when you decided to encourage Kaneki to go on that date instead of face your feelings._

Maybe he was depressed? It's odd when you're depressed; you usually get sad don't you? Not that he could have burst into song at any given second, but he didn't feel different either. The same old Nagachika Hideyoshi, the same guy, a little easier on the eyes, maybe?

“Hide, are you alright?”

The tension begins to mount to a climax in Hide's stomach. He exhales smoothly through his mouth and then sticks his head through the gap between the door and the wall and smiles welcomingly at Kaneki’s concerned face.

The murky gloom of the room casts sombre colours across the walls and floor. The limited lighting casts shadowy fingers across the ceiling.

"Hide," Kaneki persists, in that tone of voice as though someone is dying: "I made you breakfast, are you hungry?”

“Is it that obvious?” Hide jokes as his stomach releases a sound eerily similar the growl of a grizzly bear. He moves an arm to scratch nervously the back of his neck, “I’ll be down in moment, got to change these bandages before they go rank!”

A pause.

Hide continues mournfully, “It looks so much easier when they do it in the movies!”

Kaneki moves his mouth slightly forming a thin line as if contemplating an answer, and then he looks up at the ceiling before shuffling nervously on his feet, “I can dress them if you want? I know some basic first-aid.”

“Alright,” Hide agrees nervously, opening the bathroom door wider to let Kaneki inside, “but if the sight of my amazing body gets you get hungry, you’re leaving!”

Kaneki releases a sound that resembles a snort, an eye narrowed, before making a little chuckling noise and stepping inside the tiled bathroom. He begins mercilessly poking around, opening up cupboards and bottle lids, knocking things aside in the medicine cabinet. The sound causes Hide to wince, his head begins to pound again. It is a fruitless search, the only things present are a few aspirin, months over their use by date, so Kaneki bins them.

There's a bottle of raspberry flavoured cough mixture and a half empty bottle of sleeping tablets, as well as bandages and gauze. Kaneki stares, vaguely bewildered and eyebrows raised in surprise, he finds himself staring at the bottle of sleeping tablets for a long time before pulling out the necessary instruments to conduct his session.

Hide pulls a face at his friend’s scrutiny, which is promptly ignored by the SS rated ghoul.

“I need you to lift your arms for me."  Kaneki asks, his voice quiet but at ease.

Hide looks at him kindly with his beautiful brown eyes, head tilted bashfully down, mouth in a distant sort of smile that gives Kaneki a warming sensation bubbling up in his stomach. His patient is doing what he is told quickly enough, although Kaneki was expecting avid protests and maybe a bit of stubbornness.

Kanekis hands are cold when they touch his skin, and he can’t help but shiver and flinch away a little. Kaneki pauses, hands hovering uncertaintly, regret circling the stormy irises of his eyes.

“It’s okay! You didn’t hurt me!” Hide exclaims, grinning wildly “Your hands are just cold! Jeez, instead of Eyepatch they should call you Ice-Man.”

Kaneki smirks a little at his nickname before he cheekily places his hands fully on the hot skin of Hide’s back

Hide yelps, and kicks his best friend in the shins before pouting and poking out his tongue.

Kaneki unravels the bandages, letting the material spiral and fall to the floor to be discarded. Hide flinches at the sight of his wound, and the neat stitches that holds the damaged flesh together. Kaneki’s hand pauses, and he looks up at Hide through thick lashes.

 _It’s an oddly intimate moment,_ Hide thinks, feeling the tension building between them. It spirals back and forth like leaves swirling in a gust of wind.

He wryly smiles, lips curling back to reveal the teeth on his right side. He eyes the mutilated flesh with disdain, “Kaneki, we match!” he exclaims.

The wind curls through the window and beats coolly against the back of Hide’s neck as he feels Kaneki’s fingers lightly pass over his abdomen, sliding up his pectoral muscles and resting on the flat of his stomach.

The prickling heat of Kaneki’s skin makes Hide dizzy and out of breath, and the warmth rises on his skin, hot and consuming. Hide flushed wondering whether or not his thoughts had surfaced on his face. Hide surmises that he's probably going to need to take long cold shower… and maybe drown himself in it.

Kaneki lightly traces cold fingers around the edge of the wound, rubbing the topical cream into the seams carefully, avoiding the stringy lines of scabbed skin.

“I think yours is cooler than mine,” Kaneki announces, turning around to grab clean bandages off the bathroom sink. The black shirt he’s wearing pulls tightly around the broadness of his shoulders, flowing like silk over marble.

“Nah,” Hide disagrees, lifting up his arms up higher so they run parallel to the ground so Kaneki can dress his wound with ease, “Yours gave you superpowers, Man of Steel. Mine looks like I was running with scissors, fell over and stabbed myself.”

Kaneki pauses, hands ghosting the sensitive skin of Hide’s ribs causing him to shudder as the nerves react to the light touches, “I’m not a superhero Hide, if anything, I resemble a villain.”

“Villain, schmillan. Just because you get a hankering for human flesh now and then doesn’t make you an evil person.” Hide argues.

“Sometimes I worry about you.”

“How the tables have turned!” Hide retorts.

A pause. An awkward shuffle.

“So… why is there a gallon of paint in your bedroom?”

Hide and Kaneki, who had at this point been obstinately looking in opposite directions from each other. They both turn their heads, exchange a brief glance and subtly pay greater attention to each other with this change in conversation.

“I figured I should hide the evidence in case things went bust. I’d hate for my research to compromise anyone.” Hide confesses, stretching his arms back and forwards after Kaneki finishes bandaging him up.

He leans down carefully to grab his shirt off the floor, “I was going to start painting but the hole in my side began to itch, and here we are.”

He pulls the shirt over his head with Kaneki’s help, before he continues with cheeky grin “You know, it’ll be super awesome if my fabulous best friend, Doctor Octopus and his tentacles friends could help me paint.”

“I’ll help, but first we need to feed the human.” Kaneki jokes, a small smile on his features, as they leave the confined space of the bathroom to the bedroom. Hide follows, kicking his feet.

Hide looks glumly at his food. He doesn't feel much like eating. He doesn't feel like doing anything much really. His stomach is churning away like old dusty coals in a furnace, bringing the old heat back up to the boil again. He forces the food down with a smile and reassures Kaneki his cooking is still delicious.

Then again, Kaneki could feed Hide rocks covered in motor oil and Hide would’ve acted like it was the best thing he ever tasted. Love makes you stupid sometimes.

They move on to start the strenuous task of painting. As he uncaps the paint lids, Hide watches in awe as Kaneki releases his kagune from his back, sprouting into thin air like falling leaves and forming into the tails of a fox god. Without realising it, Hide grabs a tail and begins to roll the Kagune tentacle in his hands. The liquid muscle moulds like putty, flattening and hardening in the warmth, its shape changing with his ministrations. The smooth texture of the tissue is thrumming with heat and energy, and Hide is memorised.

He smiles slyly at the blush forming on Kaneki’s face and lets out a cheeky giggle when they make eye contact.

“Hey, Kaneki…” Hide starts, firming his grip on the tentacle, before using the muscle as a weapon on his best friend, whacking him on the arm repeatedly.

“Stop hitting yourself!” He laughs with childish glee, ignoring Kaneki’s fruitless protests, “Stop hitting yourself!”

Kaneki retaliates by whacking him across the butt with another tentacle, and on the calf muscle of his right leg.  Hide breaks into a fit of giggles and announces he yields between gasps of air. 

Hide walks to the kitchen to grab them some coffee to help clear the cobwebs manifesting in their brains. Kaneki stares pensively at the paints for a few moments, a thought running through his mind, before he turns to Hide who has returned from his excursion.

“Hide,” Kaneki starts, arming himself with paintbrushes dipped in an obnoxiously bright sunflower yellow colour, “How exactly are we to pay for your hospital bills?”

"Lots of ways," says Hide, sipping his coffee in the same way you would take a sip of cola at the cinema and reach for your tub of popcorn. "Where do I start? We could go into illegal organ trading, or steal from government agencies…”

At Kaneki’s displeased expression, Hide answers seriously, even if there is a splattering of paint over his nose, “I have a fair bit of money saved up, you know? Originally, my plan was to save you and run away into the sunset, so I have a stash hidden under the bed in your room.”

“How long have you been saving for? A few months?” Kaneki enquires, almost finished painting his half of the wall. To be fair, having four extra limbs did work to his advantage. The light reflects onto the wall and lights it up into brilliant molten gold, sending a warm sheen of colour all over the room.

"Six actually," Hide told him flatly; he didn't know why the words echoed in his head so loudly or didn't stir up as much pain as he had thought they would.

In fact, the horrifying truth of the matter was that they didn't stir up any pain. Spirals of nothing rose and fell through him as he thought about the past few months without Kaneki.

_Six whole months._

It used to cause him agony. A pain that would chill him right down to the bone and leave him in a place where the sky was grey and the sun no longer knew how to rise. The agony of waking up, day after day, his body shaking off the fear from a dreadful nightmare that hung like a dark fog about his soul. They had eventually gotten so bad he needed to be medicated otherwise sleep would evade him.  Kaneki’s face would fill his mind until Hide swore he could feel the remnants of heat from Kaneki’s skin on the pads of his fingers. 

His soul had felt empty as if he had been incomplete like this for such a long time he didn't know what right felt like anymore. Despite his efforts to push it to the side, to concentrate on something that didn't threaten to destroy him, to put his own best wishes first.

There was no answer for a moment, the wind rose and flew over the landscape like death on silent wings.

Hide began to edge slowly away; this was one subject he didn't want to engage on.

Kaneki wanted to tell Hide it was hell for him too. He wanted to tell Hide that he wanted him by his side, wanted to keep him and not leave him behind again. He wanted to tell Hide that he had been the only thing he had been thinking about at his days in Aoigiri. Hide would have had him by now. He would have completely stolen his heart and left all thoughts of this hell blowing in a distant and bitter wind. 

Hide chokes on air, a small strangled realisation, almost a hollow laugh, "You want to leave."             

Hide is as perceptive as ever, suddenly breaking the silence that had drifted in between them. It's an uneasy hollow sound that emanates after that, and it spirals horribly until Hide turns about again, that same relaxed characteristic expression he always wears when he doesn't want to face up to something.

Kaneki moves his head back, licking his lips so that they glisten, “I have too.”

"Why do you have to leave?" Hide challenges, eyes smouldering in the low light, "You don't have to everything alone, you know?"

Kaneki with that impossibly platinum hair. Kaneki with the smokey, unbearably dark eyes yet so silvery grey when they caught the light. Kaneki who had such high cheekbones and such a perfect mouth beneath an impossibly straight nose. Kaneki, the ever increasingly frustrating thorn in his side.

“I want you to stay with me, Kaneki Ken.”

A sharp intake of air. Kaneki sits down, feet curled up underneath him as his shoulders begin to shake.

"Hide,” Kaneki said slowly, rolling the words off his tongue delicately and uncertainty, "Do you think you can forgive me for what I've done wrong?"

“I already did in the sewers.” Hide states, and he steps closer into Kaneki’s personal space, invading it with his radiant forgiving smile.

 “Granted it wasn’t the most romantic of locations, but I had thought you were paying attention to me. You can be so scatter-brained sometimes Kaneki.”

Kaneki finds himself grinning up into the fantastic, beautiful, insanely flirtatious face that is Hide. Yes, he's grinning: because in this singular moment the world does not revolve around the sun, there is no solar system or even a universe. There is no need, there is just  _them_ , right here within this speck of time.

“I have something for you, you know,” Hide announces, disappearing from the room in a flurry of bronzed limbs. He returns, panting, falling to his knees and holding the present Kaneki nearly opened with outstretched arms.

“Happy Belated Birthday! It’s the hanging muffin man book you wanted,” Hide smiles as he slides on his knees towards him, “It sounds delicious.”

Kaneki smiles, an actual genuine smile that reaches his eyes and shows off a row of perfect teeth, “Thanks, Hide.”

Hide opens his mouth to reply but suddenly his door bursts open and slams against the opposite wall. The brass handle contacts the plasterboard at high-speed and the two mesh together, leaving a gaping indent in the paintwork.

Kaneki releases a snarl, throwing the paintbrushes in random directions, preparing to fight; he jumps in front of Hide shielding him from the intruders. Kaneki is still a menacing sight, even if there is yellow paint dripping from his Kagune and splattered all over his clothes.

Yomo raises an eyebrow at the pair before scanning the room. He finds himself looking at green oak panel work that clashes horribly with the bright yellow paint spreads messily over the walls.

“You two need to get dressed immediately, and you,” he says, indicating Hide, “Turn on the television. I assume you haven’t seen the news yet.”

Hide promptly drops the paintbrush and reaches for the remote. The TV flickers to life and after a brief pause, the voice of the nightly newsreader fills the small apartment.

“Reports have surfaced of Ghoul Attacks on CCG personnel. At 3 am this morning, the body a CCG  3rd-class investigator was reportedly found in alleyway from what is alleged to be a ghoul attack. Witnesses to the attack have reported a rabbit masked ghoul fleeing the area at high speed. This raises suspicion about the CCG’s claim to have captured the Rabbit, following their reports that it was taken into custody earlier this week. If this report is true, can the CCG protect us from the plague that haunts our city?”

"No," Hinami says, as close to outrage as she can ever get, a sort of mild disapproval.

 Hide grins fondly at her. The TV screen flickers and turns black. Yomo stands behind them all, remote in hand. “We’re moving the plan forward,” He announces grimly.

*   *   *

Yomo motions with his head for them to move back into the shade of the trees and off the path. Hide is bouncing on the balls of his feet, fingers clenched, hot adrenaline zipping up and down his spine.

"We're not equipped to be deal with casualties." Yomo’s head tilted slightly as he tries to read Hide’s wide-eyed alarmed expression, "Taking an invalid would seriously slow our progress down."

Kaneki tilts his head mimicking a politely enquiring position, his eyes soft but with a dangerous gleam in their depths. Yomo locks his jaw while Hide shuffles nervously from one foot to the other looking uncomfortable. Hinami seemed to be chewing the inside of her cheek as she looked from Yomo’s stubborn face to Kaneki, who was glowering heatedly.

"But you just said we were a day earlier than expected, she shouldn't have been harvested yet." Hide interjected. He's looking with curiosity at Kaneki who seems to be trying to form some silent word, “...and Kaneki what is wrong with your face?"

"Eh?" Hinami said expansively at the sudden change of conversation while the golden tousled haired youth hid behind her and began to peer over her shoulder.

"He's going a funny shade of purple isn't he?" Hide asked her, grinning.

Kaneki choked at this, glared furiously at Hide before turning to the only one in his opinion with any sense and said forcefully, "I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Alright, one last time.” Yomo cracks his knuckles, “Kaneki and I are going to cause a distraction to lead the on guard investigators away from the premises.” He looks at Kaneki briefly, awaiting acknowledgment. Kaneki nods slightly and Yomo continues. “Hinami will remain hidden use her power to send Hide directions through a Bluetooth headpie-“

“Yup!” Hinami interrupts enthusiastically. Yomo sighs slightly before looking to Hide. “Hide will find the location of Touka’s cell, break in and take her off her suppressants, and break her out. Without getting injured or spotted. Everyone clear?”

Three heads nod in silent agreement. “Then good luck to you all.” Yomo says with finality.

Before Hide goes to leave, Kaneki grabs his hand, they stare at each other for a moment before Hide smiles reassuringly and mouths that he’s going to be totally fine. Besides, he thinks, his superhero best friend can come and save him if needs be.

"You have to promise me… if I let you do this Hide, you have to do everything we tell you to? I want you to swear to me, that you will."

For a moment Hide doesn't say anything, ragged snippets of hair trailing messily across his eyes in a ringing silence, "I swear."

Nothing happens.

“Brother," Hinami says in an audible whisper, "you're supposed to let him go now."

Kaneki drops Hide’s hand as if he was holding hot coals, and cautiously takes a few steps away, mouth pulled into a tight line. Hinami fumbles around in her pocket, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth that breaks into a small smile of triumph.

“Excuse me, Hide.” She asks with a small voice, holding out an object in her hand with closed fist, “Could you give this to sister when you see her? It might make her feel better.”

She places a small, soft bunny plush toy in the palm of Hide’s hand. He smiles at the innocence of the gesture, and pockets the treasure, making sure it’s secure and safe.

He smiles widely at her, “I promise an express delivery, Miss Hinami! You can count on the Hideyoshi postal service!”

Hide nods at Yomo with a taut “Sir”

“If you get spotted or your cover is blown, do not engage,” Yomo commands, eyes serious, “and slip back as quickly as possible without being seen, got it?"

“But-“

“No.” Yomo’s voice is cold. “If you get spotted you will slip back here as soon as possible. I will not risk Touka’s life on your heroics. Clear?”

Hide bows and snaps a mock-salute before taking off towards the glass doors of the CCG, the shadows swallowing his figure as he disappears around the corner.

"Brother," Hinami murmurs as Yomo turns away, shaking her head in stunned disbelief, her thin mouth pulling a line of complete exasperation, "could you  _ **be**_  any more obvious if you tried? 

Kaneki had evidently decided the remark was below his dignity to answer because he only looked at Hinami who was resembling a puppy, ears pricked and excited.

*   *   *

The inside of the building is absolute chaos.  There are families everywhere, screaming children being consoled by frantic parents who are asking about loved ones. A voice shouts over the noise, announcing that people who are filing missing person’s report line up single file, and those inquiring about compensation for damages, line up over at desk number five for claimant forms.

Hide slips through and around the crowd silently, weaving in and out like a snake through the underbrush.  He logs himself in with his staff pass, and the machine beeps him clear, signalling to the room that he is in fact not a ghoul. Hide stands by the elevator and waits for agonizingly long seconds before the door opens. He steps inside and turns around to face the room as the doors begin to hiss closed.

A teenage girl forces herself through the crowd, her petite body being thrown around as she maneuvers her way closer to the gate. She has chin length orange hair that falls in front of her warm brown eyes.  She calls out to Hide, or at least Hide thinks she does, but her voice gets cut off as the elevator doors close. Hide is left wondering if he knew her from somewhere.

_Focus on the mission._

Reaching the employees floor, Hide enters the locker room and changes into his work uniform, donning a hooded jacket that he pulls up over his hat.

_Thank goodness it's winter. I would have looked extremely suspicious._

He stifles the sound the locker door usually makes when it's closed, and he takes notes of the security cameras adorning the room. He maneuvers around them with his back facing them, and Hinami’s voice buzzes into his ear.

“There are three red people in the right corridor, they’re trainees? I think. There are also two green people on the floor above you; they have weapons.”

“Roger that, Dragonfly.”

Hide moves through the corridor, counting mentally how many metres he was moving and just how far he ought to go to avoid the aforementioned dangerous people.

The building next door, another high-rise a few floors shorter.  It appears to be abandoned at this time of day, but Hides's attention focuses on the tenth-floor balcony where several security camera track slowly back and forth.  He sees the movement of human figure behind the dark glass of one of the windows, and Hide presumes that person to be Kaneki.

He goes to turn down an empty stairwell when Hinami’s voice cries in his ear.

“Blue approaching fast! I don’t think they’re dangerous but they are following you!”

“Mr Nagachika! Mr Nagachika!” a woman calls, frantically pushing her way out of a cluttered office. She trips on some paperwork and nearly knocks down a passerby in her haste to get to him., “Mr Nagachika, please wait a moment!”

“Mrs Watanabe!” Hide sighs internally and smiles graciously before bowing towards the frazzled woman, “How may I be of service?”

“I am so glad I caught up to you Mr Nagachika!” she says, adjusting the files in her hands, “If you would be so kind, can you follow me to my office so we can sort out your medical insurance? I’ve been trying to contact you all day!”

“Ahhh, I’m sorry Mrs Watanable, please forgive me! I lost my phone in the accident.”

Hide walks back along the corridor, following the assistant. Hinami’s voice in his ear whispers “ Two red to your left.”

Hide ducks his head down into his shoulder as he passes the two security guards. Mrs Watanabe’s office is crowded with files, and she manoeuvres them all into a neat pile before she goes into business mode.

“When you commenced your employment with The Ghoul Countermeasures Bureau, your private health insurance was transferred over to the companies insurance plan.” She pulls a sheet of paper out of a yellow manilla folder, and places it crisply on the wooden table in front of him, “Due to the work related injury you sustained, the company has covered seventy percent of your hospital bill.”

“Sorry for interrupting, Mrs Watanbe,” Hide interjects as confusion coats his senses, “The injury I sustained wasn’t from a work related injury, it was from a car accident. It should be in my medical records.”

_Kaneki you brilliant liar._

“That is true, however, since you were wearing A CCG uniform at the time of your incident, policy states that it is likely that you were targeted by a ghoul, or ghoul-allied party. Therefore the seventy percent.” Mrs Watanabe said cooly, clicking a pen in her thumb.  She leans over the desk and circles a figure, “This is the sum of money that the CCG has paid towards your hospital fees, as well as paid leave. If you could just sign here…”  
  
She makes an ‘x’ near a dotted line that says patient signature, “This will then go on our records, and states, that you as the claimant has accepted this payment.”

“OK, but can I just ask?,” Hide frowns suspiciously as he signs his full name on the dotted line, “What is the lump sum remaining on my medical fees?”

Mrs Watanabe pushes her glass up the ridge of her nose in surprise. “Oh! Haven’t you been informed? The driver of the car that hit you came into the office not too long ago. He paid the rest of your medical bill.”

The pen slips in Hide’s hand, bleeding a trail of black ink across the insurance forms, as fear soaks into his bones, “Sorry, I think I misunderstood you… who came in?”

“He was a strange looking man,” Mrs Watanabe announces, furrowing her brow, “Didn’t see his face properly. He did, however, leave you an apology note, such as it is.”

Mrs Watanabe fetches another slip of paper out of the manilla folder and presents it to Hide. Hastily drawn on a ripped piece of lined paper is the word “Sorry!” elaborately written. A careful drawing of a star serves as the dot on the exclamation.

For a brief moment, Hide stares at the note, a deep sense of unease swirls through him he shakes it off and heads wordlessly through the door.

*   *   *

Yomo and Kaneki have been standing in the same position for what seems to be hours. In reality, it's only been ten minutes and thirty seconds. The reason it feels like an eternity is the fact that Kaneki has been trying to remember something for these past ten minutes, and this is slowly driving Yomo crazy.

"What is it Ken?" he mutters irritably between clenched teeth. In his mind he adds the words, _"Before I disembowel you.”_

Kaneki ignores him, face pensive. There's something familiar about this, something ominous. And it's not just the smell, it's the type of smell. He's smelt it before, and there's something nagging at the back of his mind. Something is assuring him that this just isn't natural, that it isn't right. There's a bitter taste of acid on the air, a little Ammonia, or Sulfur maybe? It's making his nostrils sting and his eyes water.

Sulfur...It's making his nostrils sting and his eyes water.

“Yomo, I have this ominous feeling that something is not right. I can smell something strange.”

"It’s a hospital, Kaneki.” Yomo replies flatly.

Kaneki has both his eyes closed, face screwed up, trying desperately to remember whatever-it-is for, oh yes,  _the last ten minutes._

“He hasn’t been gone too long," Yomo murmurs to himself, before continuing out loud, _“_  "I think we should move closer in. I don't like the fact that he hasn't reported back yet; it's not that far t—"

“Good idea,” Kaneki agrees, relief saturating the stressed and tensed muscles of his face.

*   *   *

Hide grits his teeth and stares hard at the floor, honey eyes focusing as he wills everything to be still. Collecting himself, he briefly he allows his mind to reflect on the past and current events, where he is now is...standing at the top of the stairs now for a whole twenty minutes, and still hasn't moved.

It's not like he's been rooted to the spot or anything, he just… he just… he surmises at least, that he just is temporarily lost and confused.  Noises are drifting up all around him from the rooms surrounding the area, of children's cries and the shouts of _‘next please’._

He vaguely remembers people telling him things, but the information is a blur. It slips in and out, said in times when he was heavily sedated to moments when the pain was so bad he couldn't even remember his name, let alone what he was doing here.

_Nothing makes sense right now._

_Focus Hide. Focus._

His mind is travelling at a thousand miles per second categorising, and comprehending a world that’s just turned topsy-turvy.

Hinamis voice breaks through his earpiece, shaken and on the verge of tears, “I can’t sense sister anymore! **_I can’t sense sister anymore!_** _”_

Hide snaps back into action, and looks around him to check if the coast is clear before responding “Hinami, calm down. I will go to nearest computer and check the system to see if there’s any information. I promise not to let you down, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers back, voice fading slightly.

Hide enters what used to be Seidou’s office, and his heart clenches painfully in his chest. He bites his lip to hold back the tears, as the faint echo of the nightmare that occurred earlier this day rakes over his brain like rusted metal.

He hacks into the computer with ease, _too much ea_ se he idly notes, and accesses the files he needs.

Touka has been logged into the CCG laboratory, he theorises that they’ve taken her to have her kagune harvested. Idly he remembers Yomo’s words about a handicapped person being a liability and vows to get her out, no matter what.

“Hinami, I found her.” Hide announces, briefly describing to her where she needs to concentrate her sensing ability. As Hide begins to wipe the computer's temporary files from the system he notices a folder name, a very familiar one. One that causes him to steal one of Seidous USB drives and copy all the files over.

_The doctor in charge of Kaneki’s surgery._

“Green! Green! Approaching and fast! Run, Hide, get out of there!”

Frantically Hide wipes all trace of his presence off the computer and goes to escape, but pauses when Hinami tells him to hide.

Hide manages to launch himself into a cubicle that protects his position, so he can't be seen from the door, as the click-clacking of heels resounds in the room. The heels pause right in front of the cubicle he is hiding behind and Hide holds his breath and tries to still his frantically beating heart, blood rushing hard and fast in his ears as he peers through a curtain.

A woman sighs, and sharply intakes a breath of air before she roughly expels from her lips, “I loved you, you fool.”

The sound of heels start again, as well as the shuffling of papers before the sound trails away. Hinami whispers in his ear once more that the coast is clear, and Hide emerges from the room.

He looks around and, with no-one in sight, ducks through the emergency stairwell door. Hide moves fluidly down the stairs, his steps quickening under the pressure of time. He opens the fire escape door of the laboratory floor and emerges. He looks alertly up and down the loading dock at the back of the building, then reaches into his pocket and takes out a small roll of packing tape, which he uses to compress the latch.

_An escape route, if need be._

He goes back inside, closing the door, which now is not locked and tests the tapes effectiveness. He is pleased with his results and continues on. Hide emerges through the gate again, crossing the lobby, keeping his head tilted slightly down so that bill blocks his face from the surveillance cameras.

He turns a corner and shrugs off his hooded jacket, and exchanges it for a medical cloak, grabbing a surgical mask to cover his face. He walks down the corridors with his back straight and head held high, hoping he's giving the impression that he belongs here.

He pauses as a neon sign flashes red into the empty corridor that a surgery is in progress, Hide frantically hurries around to the viewing bay to see what, or who, is being worked on. He stops, his arms nearly smacking against the glass viewing window, and he feels vaguely stiff, breathless and then dizzy, very dizzy, and then sick.

Touka has just come out of surgery, the flesh on her back flayed into ribbons as two gaping wounds reside on her back like fleshy caverns. Her skin is exposed under the harsh white lights, illuminating the pale-milkiness. She looks like a fallen angel, deprived of her wings. The side of her head has been shaved, and two electric nodes are attached to the skin of her skull. Her ribcage is still and unmoving.

Numbly he moves his hands to his face; part of him doesn't want to believe it's possible, that it is true…

_We were too late._

_I’m so sorry Touka, we failed you._

 “It’s a shame this kagune is deformed,” announces one of the surgeons, his voice metallic through the speakers. He is carrying a heart shaped organ in his glove-covered hands, that he places carefully into a briefcase full of an articifical, jelly-like substance.

“The Quinque will be of low quality.”

“Should we consult an orderly to see if we should reschedule a reharvest?” the other enquires.

Hide perks up at the mention of a reharvest, relief flooding into his veins. A ghoul needs to be alive to reharvest their organs. He quickly wipes his eyes, the tears staining the white sleeve of his stolen coat.

“Page an orderly, get him to take her back to be prepped again.” One of the attending surgeons pressess a small button on the wall and a loud klaxon sounds three times. Hide heeds the call.

Taking a few deep breaths, he barges into the room, cloak flowing dramatically behind him. It’s a crazy amount courage, and it weighs heavily through his mind that this is an insanely dumb, very stupid idea.

_The key to it is not to panic._

“Orderly.” announces a surgeon, carefully adjusting the organs inside the suitcase. They carefully insert a syringe inside the kagune sac, and pump a dark red liquid into the throbbing heart, “We were just discussing what our next steps with the Ghoul. Is she going to be reharvested?”

“Yes, there will be a re-harvest,” Hide lies, trying to not to fidget under the scrutiny, “I have been ordered to take the body in for prep in Surgery Room three. I expect you gentlemen to join me when you have finished taking the Quinque to the laboratory.”

“These investigators sure are an impatient lot,” the other mumbles, spreading a sheet over Touka’s exposed body, “ They don’t appreciate the art of fine science.”

Hide blinks long thick lashes rapidly, as he always does when he's nervous. He knows and hates that it makes him look like a child. In a curiously stubborn and oddly attractive motion that completely disarms him, Hide takes a deep breath in, clenches his jaw and looks straight upwards.

“Orders are orders, Gentlemen.What the top of the food chain says, goes.”  Hide begins to wheel the bed and steels his expression at Toukas pained one, its now he notices her ribs moving faintly, “I expect to see you two in approximately two hours.”

He calmly walks, wheeling Touka’s bed and whispering reassuring words as her eyes fight to open against the medical tape plastered on them to keep them shut.

“Kaneki, Hinami and Yomo are outside waiting for you, so please hold on.” He takes the bunny out of his pocket, and places next to Toukas face and her expressions softens slightly, a mumbled ‘Hinami’ falls from her lips, muffled by the tube in her throat.

“Hinami, I have her.” Hide says, turning the speaker in his ear piece on, “We’re coming out through the west side from the loading bay. Touka is hurt so she's going to need a big cuddle to make her feel better, can you do that for me?”

“Mhm!” Hinami agrees, her tiny voice full of determination, “We will meet you there, I can sense you coming!”

“Awesome! I knew I could count on you!” He smiles and turns Touka’s bed around the corner to where the door he unlocked earlier is.  Hide realises he’s going to have to carry her the rest of the journey, “Hinami, can you put Kaneki on the phone for me?” Hope fills his chest in anticipation.

“Hide. I’m here”

“Yo, Kaneki!” He begins to take the numerous needles out of Touka's arms and neck, trying not jar her too much, presses cotton buds against the wounds to slow the bleeding.

Touka arches a little from the hips, tilts her head back, eyes closed tightly, as her mouth forms words almost silent, over and over again, a mantra prayed into earless dark as her body begins to fight the acid in her veins _._

“Touka has has her Kagune taken out, shes pretty beaten up. Do you have anything on you she can eat? I don’t fancy myself becoming her first meal when she comes around.”

“Yomo has something, I think. Please get out of there safely, and...”

“Stop worrying Man of Steel, a little espionage never hurt anyone, besides the hard part is o - ”

The floor exploded.

There is no way out, not anymore. He's stuck between the sulphur pits of hell and the bottomless abyss of space, as the flames spiral up and around like a fiery tornado.

It's the very end of hope.

**_“HIDE! NO! LET ME GO TO HIM! HIDE!”_ **

The world blurs and slips away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhhhh, Don't hate me. D:
> 
> I gave you clues ;p
> 
> Also, come be my friend:  
> http://nironwrites.tumblr.com/


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